Hi It's Eliot Again
by WRTRD
Summary: A group of one-shots narrated by Eliot Beckett-Castle, who previously appeared in "Womb with a View," "Hi. I'm Eliot," and "Hi. I'm Your Brother," or as reviewer sillylissy calls it, "The Hi Series."
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

The first thing was that last week Dad took me to a store to buy new shoes with laces that tie. When he tied them he made something called a double knot so they won't come undone. I don't know to tie things yet but when I'm older I'll learn. Dad says Alexis will teach me because we're both left-handed so we don't tie our shoes the same way that he and Mom do. The second thing was that I got a lunch box! I got to pick it out, so I chose one with four dachshunds and a paw print in the middle. That way I can think of Scrapple when he's at home and I'm not.

I bet you already figured out why I got new shoes that tie plus a lunchbox. I'm going to school! It's called nursery school, which is a bad name if you ask me. The twins are in a nursery. Nurseries are for babies. I'm not a baby. I'm two years and one month old. Everybody in my school is two, three or four. They're not babies either, even though some of them still wear diapers like babies which I do not. Mom and Dad told me not to make fun of them. Gregory who lives in our building used to say, "Nyah, nyah, you stupid baby" to me about my diapers so I won't say it to anyone else. But Gregory's nose is always running and some time I'm going to call him a big booger and see how he likes that. Gregory is four. I'm glad he doesn't go to my school.

School started on Tuesday. Mom and Dad took a first-day-of-school picture of me with my lunchbox and my lace-up shoes and my shorts and my new T shirt that Docky just gave me. It says HI. I'M ELIOT. That way the teachers will know who I am even though they just met me. The kids who can read will, too, but there aren't very many who do. I am the only one in my classroom who can. That was another thing Mom and Dad told me, not to make fun of kids who can't read yet. My lunchbox is really to hold my snack, so I think it should be called a snackbox. I go home at twelve o'clock. School is only in the morning.

On the first day of school, Sarah the baby sitter stayed with the twins and Scrapple so Mom and Dad could take me to school together. Mom has gone back to work, so some mornings she will drop me off and some mornings Dad or Sarah will. It's only four blocks away so it doesn't take long to get there. Mom and Dad had already met my teachers, but I hadn't. They're Ms. Walker and Mr. Shue. I'm not making that up, those are really their names! Walker and Shue! The classroom next door has Ms. Hendricks and Ms. Stein, which are more ordinary names. Anyway the first morning I also met the kids in my room, four girls and five other boys. Ms. Walker and Mr. Shue (ha ha!) showed us our cubbies. Each one of us has a cubby where we can put our lunchboxes and our coats and boots when it gets cold out. Our cubbies have our names on them in big letters. On one side of me is LIAM and on the other side of me is EMMA B. Her cubby has the extra letter because there are two Emmas in my class, Emma Bernstein (Emma B.) and Emma Richardson (Emma R.). I'm glad there are no other Eliots. I like being the only one, plus if someone says, "Hi, Eliot," I know they're talking to me and not another boy.

After everyone had met everyone else it was time for the parents to go. A lot of the kids cried but I didn't, even though I wanted to. Mom said, "Be a good, brave boy, Eliot, and have fun at school. Learn lots of new things. Be kind, okay? I know you will be." She gave me a hug and a kiss and so did Dad, but I saw Mom out in the hall and you know what? Even though she wasn't making any noise, she was crying harder than Emma R. or Jacob, and they were really crying.

We had games and music and stories and resting time but I was glad when it got to be twelve o'clock. I was a little bit afraid what if Dad didn't remember me, but he was right there at the door when the bell rang. We said goodbye and see you tomorrow to Ms. Walker and Mr. Shue and then Dad held my hand and we went outside.

"Did you miss me?"

"Yah."

"Did you miss Mom?"

"Yah."

"And Scrapple?"

"Yah."

"How about Otis and Abby?"

"Ti bit, Dad."

"Oh, you missed them a tiny bit, huh?"

"Yah. Home now?"

"You bet, kiddo, home we go."

"Not see Mom?"

"No, you know she's at the precinct, so we'll see her at the end of the day."

"See now? Prise?"

Dad stopped right there in the middle of the sidewalk and not even on the WALK DON'T WALK corner. "Surprise Mom?"

"Yah! Prise! Coffee!"

"Oh, you're so right, that's Mom's favorite surprise." So Dad called Sarah to say we'd be home later and we took a taxi to the precinct. Before we went upstairs we stopped to pick up lunchtogo and twocoffeesandamilktogo. We snuck in to Mom's office and I said "Boo!" She was really surprised and I got to practice Boo! for Hallowe'en which is pretty soon. We ate our lunch right there.

"What did you learn at school today, sweet pea?"

"Whees on bus!"

Dad said "Uh-oh, Beckett."

"Uh-oh, Dad? Why?"

Mom put down her sandwich and laughed. "You explain that one away, Castle."

Dad looked at me. " 'Wheels on the Bus,' eh?"

"Yah."

"Alexis sang that about a zillion times when she was in nursery school. I bet Mom did, too, when she was a little girl. We'll have to ask Granddad. It's a great song, but hearing Alexis sing it all the time drove me a little bit crazy. Are you gonna do that?"

"Yah, Dad! Fun!"

Then Mom had to work some more and Dad and I went home. I took a nap as soon as I got there. I didn't know that school would make me tired but it does. When I woke up I had an idea. I went to see Otis and Abby and told them about school and also my idea, which was a secret. They were practicing sitting up. They still fall over most of the time, but they're getting better. But I really needed to know what Scrapple thought.

 _"_ _Wickedly good, Eliot!"_

 _"_ _I thought wicked meant bad? Can something be badly good?"_

 _"_ _Wicked also means really great. This is a great idea."_

 _"_ _Do you think you can do it?"_

 _"_ _Don't know why not."_

When Docky called that night I told him and asked him if he would tell Gram.

 _"_ _Scrapple said it was a wickedly good idea, Docky."_

"Scrapple is right. I'll call your grandmother right now."

I know he did because this afternoon, which is Saturday, Gram came over to stay with me for a few hours while Mom and Dad went out and the twins were asleep. As soon as they shut the door she and I went over to the piano and sat down on the bench and Scrapple was on the floor right next to us.

"Doctor Perlmutter told me that you'd like to teach Scrapple to sing along when you do 'The Wheels on the Bus.' What a wonderful idea! I'm so happy to have two more performers in the family, sweetheart. You know, I had a little experience with a singing dog in summer stock a thousand years ago, and I'm sure I can manage. Scrapple is a very smart fellow."

Scrapple put his head back and made a noise like "arwhorrwh."

So we practiced even harder than the twins had been practicing sitting up and guess what? He can do it! Not with the words like Gram and me, but he sounds just like the song. We couldn't wait for Mom and Dad to get home.

As soon as I heard the key in the lock I ran to the door. "Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!"

"You seem extra excited, Eliot," Mom said, and she grabbed me to swing me up. "Did you have fun with Gram?"

And there was Gram, right by me. She had a big, big smile. "Oh, yes, darlings, we had more fun than you can imagine. Truly."

Dad got what Gram calls his suspicious look. "Is this going to cost me anything, Mother?"

"Well, Richard, not in the standard sense. But we do have a surprise for you of immeasurable worth. Eliot? Do you want to lead the way?"

So I waved my arm for everyone to come with us and I started walking to the piano.

"Do please take a seat," Gram said, which is a fancy way of asking Mom and Dad to sit down, and they did.

"Remember what you do first, Eliot?" she said to me.

"Yah." So I bowed and Scrapple bowed and he and I got up on the piano bench with Gram and then all three of us sang "The Wheels on the Bus."

As soon as we finished, Mom jumped up and clapped and Dad put his hands on top of his head and said, "Dear God." I'm not sure if that was good or bad but Mom clapped some more and more and said, "Play it again, Sam!" She meant me, even though I'm Eliot, and Gram and Scrapple. So we did, and Dad fell over on the sofa and said "Unnnnhhhhhhhh." He sounded kind of like Scrapple. It was great!


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This is for BaltimoreJaxs.

Last Sunday afternoon Docky came over to see Scrapple and me while Sarah took care of the twins and Mom and Dad went to see a play. Docky and I were building a hospital and a police station out of blocks when they got home.

"Hi, Mom, hi, Dad!"

"Please forgive me for not getting up, but Eliot and I are in the middle of a construction project. How was the play?"

"Aah, so-so," Mom said, "but Hallie Foote was incredible."

I pointed to my shoe. "Foot!"

"Yes, that's her last name, just like your foot."

 _"_ _Docky, my teacher should have gone to the play with Mom and Dad."_

"Why is that?"

 _"_ _Because his name is Mr. Shue! He could have jumped up and said, 'Hi, Ms. Foote, my name is Mr. Shue. Will you marry me?' Wouldn't that be funny? They would be the Shue-Foote family."_

Docky laughed, so I knew he thought it was funny. "You crack me up, Eliot."

 _"_ _I like that expression, you crack me up. I'm glad you explained it the other day or I would have thought that I broke you, get it? I cracked you up?"_

"I do get it. You definitely crack me up."

"I think we're missing something here, Beckett," Dad said, but he was smiling. "This calls for ET."

So ET—in case you forgot, that's short for Eliot Translator, who is Docky—told Mom and Dad what I'd told him and they laughed, too. Then he pushed himself up from the floor and said, "Castle, would you like to finish building the precinct with your son? I'd like to have a word with Kate about a case, if that's all right."

So Dad switched places with Docky and got some toy police cars to put in front of our police station and Mom and Docky went to the kitchen. They were talking for a little while and then we all heard Otis and Abby who had just woken up from their nap and Sarah brought them downstairs. Oh, boy, oh, girl (get it?) I knew they would get on the floor and knock over my blocks and they did. "Don't cry over spilt milk," Grandad says. That's an expression not about milk. It means something happened and you can't fix it but it's not important.

Sarah went home and Docky stayed a little while to have coffee with Mom and Dad. And then we had a nice, quiet evening at home. That's what Mom called it, but if you have two babies at home like my sister and brother it's never very quiet.

I forgot to tell you the exciting news which is that the day before I got a big boy bed.

 _"_ _Abby and I are still getting used to not being in bassinets anymore but sleeping in cribs like you and you don't have to be in a crib anymore? That's not fair. You always get to do everything first."_

 _"_ _He's older than we are, Otis. He's bigger, so he gets a big boy bed. It's logical."_

 _"_ _Well, someday I'll be bigger than Eliot and then we'll see who gets to do things first."_

 _"_ _You think you're going to be bigger than me, Otis?"_

 _"_ _Yeah, Dad says I'm a real bruiser."_

 _"_ _I think he means you're kind of fat, Otis. Eliot's going to be very tall. Everybody says that."_

 _"_ _You guys? We're all gonna be tall, even Abby. I'll see you later."_

The thing I like about my new bed is that it doesn't have all those rails and it's low to the floor so that Scrapple can jump up on it and sleep next to me. And the night that Docky came over I found out something because of my new bed. I decided to see if I could get out of it all by myself so I did. I wanted to tell Mom and Dad and I walked to the top of the stairs where I have to wait for them if I want to come down but they were in the kitchen and I could hear them talking about me so I decided to listen. I didn't understand all of it, but most of it I did.

"Castle, I understand that he's really smart."

"He's way more than that, Beckett."

"I understand. I do. I just don't want to make him self-conscious or isolate him from kids his age. The principal suggested putting him in the class with the older kids, but his verbal skills aren't up to it yet. I don't know how to do this. It terrifies me, that we can screw this up. It's a parental responsibility I never expected."

"We'll figure it out. He's such a level-headed kid. He can help us, too, you know? What was Perlmutter saying to you this afternoon? I know it wasn't anything about a case."

"He was saying how funny he is, how he's blessed with a great sense of humor. He can tell that better than we can at the moment, but we do see that he laughs all the time. And I think that will be a huge help to him when he's older, that he's so funny."

"So he's funny and he's happy, sounds like a good combination to me."

"It is, it is, but he needs more, and I don't mean educational toys. I was thinking maybe one thing could be a second language?"

"Like Russian? Or French? You could speak those with him. Especially French, ooh-la-la."

"Sidney told me about an amazing graduate student at NYU, Ernie Jackson. Absolutely understands kids like Eliot and plays great games with them, one on one. Sidney say if we're interested, he'll get in touch with the guy."

"Let's do it."

I decided to go back to bed. I can climb in all by myself. I liked that Mom and Dad said I can help with things and I liked hearing about Docky's friend who plays games with kids all the time. That sounded like fun.

Two days later we went to enwyyou to meet Ernie Jackson. Well, I met him. Mom and Dad already did the day before.

"Eliot," Mom said when we were on our way, "Mister Jackson had a very bad accident a while ago."

"He has ow?"

"Yes, a very bad ow. He's fine now, but I want you to know that he has some scars. You know what scars are, because you've seen mine. But Mister Jackson's are on his face, especially around his eyes. I don't want you to stare at them, all right? Because that's not kind, even if you're just curious, okay?"

"Kay."

"I think you're really going to like him, Eliot." Dad said. "He's very funny."

"And he has a great imagination, just like you, sweet pea."

Then we were at the big brick building where Mister Jackson works. Only after I met him I didn't have to call him that. I call him Ernie. He is really tall and so funny. I am going to see him two times a week. You know what we did the first day? A game called checkers. He taught me how to play. It's a game on a board with checks which must be why it's called checkers.

"You want the red guys or the white guys, Eliot?"

"Red!"

"I thought you'd say that. You like bright colors, don't you?"

"Yah."

I like the part where your guys, they're called pieces, get to jump over the other guys. Sometimes you get to be kinged which is good because a king gets to jump around all over the place, anyway he wants.

"Crow, Ernie?"

"Crow? Oh, crown! You think you should get a crown when you get kinged?"

"Yah! Crow!"

"I'll have to think about that."

So yesterday Dad took me to see Ernie and he had a surprise. When we played checkers, the first time my red guy got kinged, Ernie stood up and said, "One minute, your majesty." He bent over to open the cabinet but before he did he turned around and said, "Please close your eyes, your majesty." And I did.

"Okay, you can open 'em!"

I did, and I clapped! Ernie had made me a crown, and one for him, too, for when he gets kinged. It has gold sparkles and jewels. Not real jewels like Mom's ring, but pictures he glued on. It's very cool. I leave it at Ernie's office for when we play. "You don't want other kids seeing it, your majesty. They might get jealous." He stores our crowns in the cabinet so they're safe.

On our last game yesterday, guess what. I beat Ernie! He said, "This calls for a celebration!" and we had a chocolate-chip cookie which is my favorite, and a glass of milk. He took my picture with me wearing my crown, and one of the checkerboard where you could see I won. And he sent them to Mom and Dad and Docky and underneath he wrote, "The New Champ!" That's me, Eliot. I know I won't be the champ every time, but that's fine. I love Ernie.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This will be a two-shot. The second part, which will be up tomorrow or Monday, will be chapter 19 in "A Few Good Fonts," so don't look for it here!

Next month it's going to be Christmas, and Dad said I should start making a list of things for Santa. I thought for a long time and I got a whole bunch of ideas. One night last week when it was FaceTime with Docky I asked him if he could write down my list of things for Santa and tell Mom and Dad later since they were making dinner.

"I'd be happy to do that. I have a pad of paper and a pencil right here, so I'm ready when you are," Docky said.

"Okay."

"What do you want me to put at the top of your list?"

"Mittens! And a hat. It's cold out."

"You're right, and it's getting colder. Do you have a color in mind?"

"Not red. Maybe blue."

"You're crazy about blue, aren't you? That's your favorite color, as I recall."

"Yeah!"

"I'm writing down mittens and a hat. What's next?"

"A humongous box of cookies."

Docky coughed like he had something caught in his throat. "Cookies, eh? What kind?"

"I think graham crackers. Yeah, graham crackers are the best idea."

"Uh, Eliot, far be it from me to question your list for Santa Claus, but don't you already have lots of graham crackers at home? I know that you and your father like to make s'mores."

"We love those! Abby got marshmallow in her hair when we made them the other day. I thought it was so funny but Mom didn't. She said it took her ten minutes to get it out. Plus Abby was hollering the whole time."

"Well, then, are you sure you want graham crackers?"

"Yes, because Santa really loves them. And if we gave him a big box for Christmas he would have his own and not have to wait 'til next Christmas when we leave them on a plate for him. He could even eat some on the way home to the North Pole. I bet he's hungry after delivering all those presents."

"Oh, Eliot. Oh, my."

I have to stop for a second because I want to tell you that I love it when Docky says, "Oh, my."

"Um, tell me something. What's the most important thing on your list? Or the biggest?"

"Nine reindeer beds. You know, great big cushions for all the reindeer to lie down on like Scrapple does on his. They'd each have their own and they'd be very cozy. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and Rudolph. Do you think it would be nice if we could say those are from Scrapple? Because they're animals and he's an animal."

"It's a wonderful idea. I'll tell you what, why don't we finish this list tomorrow? You'll remember everything on it, won't you?"

"Yeah!"

"Could you ask your father if he could speak to me for a minute, please? If he isn't too busy?"

"Okay. Hold on, Docky."

"Absolutely."

"Oh, bye! Talk to you tomorrow!"

"Best part of my day, Eliot."

So I went and got Dad and while he talked to Docky I watched Mom cut up carrots one of which she accidentally dropped on the floor and Scrapple ate it. That's why he always sits next to the island in the kitchen, because pieces of food fall off it. He says the only better place is under the twins' high chairs. "That's a gold mine, Eliot." But the twins were already in bed asleep, so he was sitting by Mom instead.

When Dad came back to the kitchen he was smiling. He came right over to me and picked me up in a bear hug and kissed me on the forehead. And then he turned me upside down which is my favorite thing. And then he turned me right-side up and sat on one of the stools and put me on his lap.

"You know what, Beckett?" Dad said, looking at Mom.

"I don't know what," Mom said and tapped her wooden spoon on the side of the pan, "but whatever it is, it's making you very happy. So, you gonna fill Eliot and me in?"

"We have the world's most amazing son."

"Already know that, Castle." Mom smiled at me.

"Even more amazing than we knew. A few days ago I told Eliot that since Christmas is coming up he should start making a list of things for Santa."

"Yeah, Dad! List!"

Dad leaned over so he could look at me. "You made an incredible list. Docky just told me all about it."

"More, Dad. More list!"

"Right, Docky said you had a longer list but he stopped you so he could tell me about it."

"Okay."

"I'm going to tell Mom what you had so far. The first thing was a hat and mittens because it's cold out."

"That's good," Mom said.

"Oh, you have no idea how good," Dad said, and he gave her a funny look that made her face be red. "The next thing on the list was a ginormous box of graham crackers—"

"You want graham crackers?" Mom looked confused.

Before I could tell her about it, Dad said, "Hold on a sec. And the third thing on Eliot's list, before Perlmutter stopped him, was nine big cushions, one per reindeer, so they could be, in our son's words, 'very cozy.' And he wondered if we could say that they were from Scrapple to the reindeer, since they're all animals."

I don't know why, but Mom put her hand over her mouth and big tears came out of her eyes. And then she wiped them off with the back of her other hand and said, "Oh, sweet pea," and came around to where I was and hugged me even harder than Dad did before. Mom is pretty skinny, but she's so strong. You wouldn't believe it. "You are such a generous boy. And you have such a kind heart." I didn't know what she was talking about and I guess I looked confused, too.

"When Dad said you should make a list for Santa, you thought he meant you should think of some presents for you to give Santa, right?"

"Yeah. Dad say."

"You're right, Eliot, I did say that, but what I meant was that you should make a list of things that you would like Santa to bring _you_ for Christmas."

"For me?"

"Yup, for you. Boys and girls all over the world write letters to Santa so that he knows what they'd like. He couldn't keep it straight otherwise. He might bring you, let's see, a suitcase full of tunafish!"

"No, Dad! Noooo! No tuna! No like tuna."

"See, that's why you have to make a list for Santa, so he doesn't bring something you don't like. But what you did was just what Mom said, so kind. You were thinking we should give presents to Santa. I think that's great. I never thought of that. Shall we pick one thing from your list?"

"Dad's right, Eliot, how about one special present? You know, you don't want Santa and the reindeer to have pull anything too heavy all the way back to the North Pole."

"Santa and deer?"

"What? Oh, a present for all of them? How about we get a bunch of carrots for the reindeer and you choose something for Santa?"

"Okay. Yay!"

"I'm going to put you down now," Dad said and lifted me off his lap. "And after we have supper you can start thinking about what you'd like from Santa. You can tell Docky when you're done."

"Day?"

"No, not today. You don't have to decide right now."

A couple of days ago I was thinking about words. I really, really love words. So when I had FaceTime with Docky that night I asked him some questions.

"Docky, you know how some words are the same frontwards and backwards? Like MOM and DAD and PUP and my friend Anna who is ANNA?"

"Sure, there are quite a lot of words like that. Do you like those?"

"Yes. Do they have a name?"

"You mean a name for a word that is spelled the same either way?"

"Yeah."

"That's called a palindrome. It's hard to say, but it sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Very exotic."

"What's exotic?"

"Let's see. Sort of mysterious."

"I like that, Docky! What about when you mix letters up for a different word?"

"Can you tell me a word like that, Eliot? I think then I can answer your question."

"The boy whose cubby is next to mine at school is called Liam. We have our names on top of our cubbies and this morning I was looking at his and I thought if you mixed up the letters of LIAM that would spell MAIL, like a letter. Isn't that funny? Mix up the letters for something that means a letter! Another word I thought of was last night when Mom had kale salad. I don't like kale. I like how the word sounds but I hate the taste. Ugh! Do you like it?"

"Don't tell anyone, Eliot, but I don't like it, either, even though it's very good for us. So that can be our secret."

"Good! Okay! Shhhhh! A secret. Mom showed me how kale is spelled and then later I thought if you mix up the letters for it you get lake! I love the lake by Granddad's cabin. So is there a name for words that are different but have the same letters, like LAKE and KALE or LIAM and MAIL?"

"There is, and it's a great word, too. Almost as good as palindrome, but easier to say. Anagram. It's called an anagram."

Then I laughed for a long time until finally Docky asked me what was so funny. "Anagram!"

"Anagram is funny? Why is that?"

"Because it sounds like my friend and my grandmother smushed together. Anna and Gram, get it?"

Then Docky laughed as hard as I did. And then it was time for me to go to bed.

Ever since then I've been thinking so hard about what I'd like to ask Santa to bring me for Christmas. Today is Saturday, so we all went to the park in the afternoon and Otis tried to eat two acorns which he spat out all over Mom and then we went home and on the way Dad called Docky to see if he would like to come over for coffee, which he did. The grown-ups had coffee but the hellions and I had juice. The hellions are the twins. That's what Gram calls them, but I'm not allowed. I think maybe because it starts with hell which is a swear word.

We were in the living room and Dad said, "Eliot, have you made a list for Santa yet?"

"Yeah, Dad, list!"

"Since Docky is here he could do all the translating for us so we could write your letter. How about that?"

So I said okay and told him some things like a drum which made Mom make a terrible face like she had just shut her hand in the door. But I saved the present that is the most important for the last.

"Blocks! Best one!"

Mom said, "Blocks? But you have blocks. Are there special blocks you want?"

So I asked Docky, "Remember when we were talking about words?"

"Of course. That was fun, especially what you said about anagram."

"Could you tell Mom and Dad about that?"

"Sure." And he did and they liked hearing all about it, plus they laughed at Anna and Gram, too.

"But Eliot," Dad says, "I'm still not sure why you want Santa to bring you more blocks?"

So I explained to Docky that I would like to have a whole lot of blocks, bunches and bunches of blocks with all kinds of letters, not pictures. Just letters so I could find about a million anagrams and palindromes and build things out of them. "Dad was watching the news on TV and a woman said 'words are building blocks.' That would be my best present, if I could have a lot of those."

Later I had my bath and got into my favorite PJs which have dogs all over them and say DOG TIRED on the front, which is a very good joke. Scrapple jumped up on the bottom of my bed and Mom and Dad tucked me in.

"Tomorrow we'll write your letter to Santa," Dad said. "And put some stamps on it and drop it in the mail box."

"Liam!"

"Right. We'll put it in the Liam box, you little comedian."

"Wordsmith, Castle. We've got another wordsmith here." Mom tugged on Dad's ear, which she does sometimes. Dad always says ouch like it hurts but really he likes it. "No doubt who _his_ father is."

So I pointed to him and said, "It's Dad!"

Night!


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This is the first in a two-part Hanukkah-Christmas arc. The second part will deal with Eliot's present for his parents. If this is a little sweet, please indulge me. We would all use some sweetness and kindness these days.

Mom and Dad have more ideas than anybody else I know. They had a really, really good one today.

Hanukkah begins tomorrow so we were going shopping this morning to get something for Hanukkah for Sarah our babysitter while she was taking care of Otis and Abby. That way we could surprise her when we came home.

I learned at school that Hanukkah has eight days so I thought that we should get Sarah eight presents, one for each day. Mom and Dad wanted to get her one big present, but I still thought we should give her eight. They could be seven little presents. That's what you get if you take away one from eight. Seven.

One night last week at dinner Mom said, "Dad and I have been thinking about what you said about eight presents for Sarah. We think that's really nice, so we have a plan. Want to hear?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, you know, Sarah really wants to go to Paris, but she can't afford it yet even though she has been saving up. So we bought her a plane ticket and a hotel room for a week. That's the big present."

"Little too?"

"Yes, little, too," Dad said. "We're going to get little things that are clues for the big present. Things that have to do with Paris or make people think of Paris."

"Sarah can open those first and she'll really be wondering, won't she?"

"Yeah! Clues!"

Isn't that smart? Mom and Dad are smart about clues. That's because Mom is a Captain with the police and has to find clues every day and Dad is a mystery writer so he has to make up clues in his stories.

When we left home this morning, Dad said, "We don't have a list, Eliot, so this is really going to be fun. We'll think of them as we go along, okay?"

"You have lots of ideas, sweet pea, and you spend a lot of time with Sarah, so if you think of something you tell us, okay?"

The minute I looked across the street I had an idea. "Pens!"

"Pens?" Dad said. "Pens are great, but I'm not sure how they can be clues."

"I show. Pens." I pointed to the store across the street. I love it because it is full of so much stuff and the guys who work there can find anything. My favorite is the giant basket by the door that has all different colors of balls for Scrapple. My next to favorite is the shelf that has about a million kinds of pens. As soon as we got in the store I pulled Mom's hand so I could show her what I wanted to get.

"Three, Mom."

"Okay, three pens? For a clue?"

"Yeah, clue. I show." So first I pointed to the blue ones and then the white ones that you have to use on dark-colored paper or they won't show up and then the red ones. "Flag!"

Mom got it right away. "The French flag! Blue, white and red. How did you know that, Eliot?"

"Ernie."

"Ernie is teaching you about flags?"

"Yeah. In game."

"You know a lot of them, I bet. Let's see, do you know what colors the flag of —"

"Afghanistan!" Dad hollered.

Mom looked at him like he was a little bit nutty. "Really, Castle? Not something a little easier?"

"I'm not asking him to spell it, Beckett. I chose it because it's first in the alphabet."

I know that flag! That's an easy one. So I pointed to black and then red and then green and Dad gave me a high five. "How about Zimbabwe, Eliot?"

Mom looked at him again. "Let me guess, last in the alphabet?"

"Yup."

"And you know what these flags look like?"

"Of course. I had to research them all when Derrick Storm went undercover at the U.N."

I pulled on Mom's hand again so they would stop talking and let me show them the Zimbabwe colors which are green, yellow, red, and black. "And birdie."

"Birdie?"

"Oh," Dad said and smiled at me. "There's a bird in the middle of the Zimbabwean flag, right Eliot?"

"Yeah."

Mom looked happy. "Whatever we're paying Ernie, Castle? Not enough. Not nearly enough."

"I love Ernie, Mom."

"Me, too," she said. So we bought the blue, white and red pens for Sarah's clue and the man wrapped them up and put a ribbon on them.

Dad thought the next clue should be something that you can eat in Paris so we went to the patisserie which is French for bakery and got chocolate eclairs because everyone loves those, especially Sarah. We also got her a box of bonbons which is a fancy French word for chocolates. Really bonbon means good good, which a bonbon is. So that made three presents. Then I had another idea.

"Book, Dad?"

"What kind of a book?"

"Funny. Sarah funny."

"Sarah is funny, you're right. Mom speaks French so maybe she knows a funny French book. Beckett?"

Mom thought for a while. You can always tell when she's thinking hard because she chews on her lip or gets a line between her two eyebrows. Sometimes if she's thinking extra hard it's both. She chewed on her lip and then stopped. "I know! Albertine. The French bookstore on the Upper East Side. They'll have something."

We took the subway to the bookstore only when we got there Mom and Dad remembered that Sarah doesn't really know French so she would be confused by a French book. We were wandering around in there and I saw one of my best books from Gram. It's about about an elephant named Babar who is married to another elephant named Celeste, but when I opened it I couldn't understand the words. They were French! I didn't know that Babar spoke French and then Mom said that Babar's first language, after elephant, is French and somebody translated the book into English, which means they turned it into English so kids like me can read it, too, not just kids in France.

Mom asked me, "Does Sarah like Babar?"

"She love Babar."

"Let's get her this book, then. Since you have the same one in English she'll be able to understand it right away."

When we were paying for Babar Dad saw a map of Paris, so we got that, too. It will help Sarah not get lost when she's there. The lady at the desk wrapped both of them in blue, white and red paper like the flag. That made five presents so we had to get two more. I didn't have any more ideas but Mom did. "Ready, gentlemen? One stop will do it."

"Where are we going?" Dad asked.

"Saks."

"Uh-oh."

I didn't know why Dad said that. "Uh-oh?"

"Mom loves that store. She could spend the whole day in here looking shoes and we'd be so bored we'd fall asleep."

"Dad is exaggerating, Eliot. Besides, we're not going to the shoe department." I saw her poke Dad in the ribs.

Saks is a big department store and it had stuff coming down from the ceiling that looked like snow and icicles but wasn't. It was just decoration. "We can get Sarah a beret here, and a little bottle of Chanel, because those are about as iconically French as you can get," Mom said.

I never heard of iconically, but I think it might mean very. Anyway, we picked out a black beret because Sarah likes black, and Chanel, which turns out to perfume. And that made seven clues!

"All done," Dad said. We were almost at the door when I saw something and it made me remember something really, really important, so I stopped. "Docky!" Mom and Dad must have thought that I saw him because they looked all around for him, but I didn't see him, I just thought of him. Docky is Jewish like Sarah so that means he has Hanukkah, too.

"Docky hahnock."

"Oh," Mom said. "Of course. Docky is Jewish. Did you want to get him a Hanukkah present while we're here, Eliot?"

"Yeah. Get eight!"

Mom laughed. "Well, we'll start with one. And you choose. Did you see a present for him?"

"Gubs."

"Gubs? Oh, gloves," Dad said. "That's something he'd like, that's good. I see men's gloves are right over there." We went and got him some that I found. They are blue like the coat we gave him after the twins were born and they are soft inside like the coat. I'm happy we bought those.

We took a taxi home and Sarah was surprised when we came in the door because she thought we wouldn't be there until later.

"The twins are still asleep," she said.

"We were kind of counting on that," Dad said. "Things are so crazy here in the morning and we just thought it would be nice for us all to sit down and have some coffee before you go."

"Thanks, Rick. That's a nice idea. We don't get to do that much."

Dad made coffee and poured some juice for me while Mom and I went to their room to hide Sarah's presents except for the first one.

"Would you like to carry it in?"

"Yeah!"

"Can you hold it behind your back so she doesn't see it right away?"

"Yeah, can."

"Okay, let's go then."

Mom and I walked to the living room and I was extra careful because I had the box. When I got to Sarah's chair I handed it to her. "PRIZE!"

"What's this, Eliot? May I open it?"

"Yeah. Hahnock."

"We know Hanukkah doesn't begin until tomorrow, but I might not see you," Mom said. "We thought we'd get a little jump on the holiday."

I guessed I should jump, so I did. And Sarah unwrapped her package and saw it was eclairs. "Yum! My favorite! We all have to have one right now."

"No, those are for you," Dad said. "You should take them home."

"I'd eat them all in one sitting and slip into a chocolate coma. No, let's all have some and spare my health. There's still plenty left over. Thank you so much. And they're from my favorite bakery, too."

"Eliot told us," Mom said.

"He would, wouldn't he?" Sarah said. "No secrets with you, buster."

"I keep." I can keep a secret, so there! I didn't say anything about the eclairs being a clue.

"Oh, Eliot is full of surprises," Dad said and he winked at me.

We had the eclairs and the hellions stayed asleep! Then we said goodnight and happy Hanukkah to Sarah.

When Mom was giving me a bath later she said, "We had a good time today. You love getting presents for people, don't you? You're Dad's boy all right."

"I Mom's boy too, Mom."

She kissed me on top of my head. "You are. You are."


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** Oops! This was supposed to the second in a two-part Hanukkah-Christmas arc. Instead, it's the second in a three-part one. I blame it on that little chatterbox, Eliot. Part three will follow soon.

Monday was the last night of Hanukkah, and Mom came home at lunchtime so we could give Sarah her big present. The one before this was the map and I think she was getting suspicious but Dad said, "Can't have you wandering around in a fog trying to find the Eiffel Tower if you ever escape from us and get to Paris, Sarah." After that I don't think she guessed.

When Mom came in Sarah and Dad were trying to get Abby and Otis to stop screaming. They are getting teeth which everyone says hurts them but what it really hurts is my ears. You can't believe how loud they are. I bet Santa can hear them at the North Pole. The reindeer are probably going crazy! When they're hollering like that I think I'm allowed to call them the hellions. Mom said, "Bonjour, mes enfants." That means "Good day, my children," which sounds a lot better in French. I think it's really sort of the same as, "Hi, kiddos." Anyway, the hellions cheered up when they saw Mom and she and Sarah got them into their cribs and they fell asleep.

"Peace at last, huh, Eliot?"

"Yeah, Dad."

"Here come Sarah and Mom. Why don't you get the present from its hiding place."

I ran to where it was, behind Mom's big pillow of the Union Jack. That's the flag for the United Kingdom which is very near to France and has the same colors. The plane ticket and the paper about the hotel room were inside a skinny box and wrapped up in blue white and red. The grownups were sitting at the table and Scrapple was under it and I climbed up in my chair next to Sarah and handed her the box.

"Eight!"

"Oh, Eliot, what's this? My number eight present? Wow. Should I open it?"

"Yeah."

She untied the bow, but before she took the paper off she said, "I've been wondering about this French theme with the beret and the map and the eclairs and everything." She picked up the box and shook it next to her ear. "I can't guess what's in here, but maybe a scarf? Every woman in France knows how to wear a scarf and be incredibly chic. Or maybe it's a gift certificate for a scarf-tying class so I can learn to do that?"

I told you Sarah was funny. I don't think there are classes for that.

"You're on the right track," Mom said.

You should have seen Sarah when she took the top off the box. She cried! I never knew Sarah could cry. She kept hugging and thanking us. Finally she said, "This is way too much."

"No, it's not," Dad said. "Our kids can be way too much, though. You've earned every bit of this."

"Bon voyage!" Mom said. That means "have a good trip." It's amazing how much better a lot of things sound in French. I want Mom to teach me. But right then it was time for her to go back to work and Dad and I went to the planetarium where you can see stars inside that are really outside. Sarah stayed home with the twins. I hope she had some ear muffs. Maybe we should have given her some for Hanukkah.

That night Docky came to supper and we gave him his present. "Eliot picked it out, Sidney," Mom said.

"Totally his idea," Dad said.

"Well, then," Docky leaned over to me, "I bet I'm going to love it." He did! He put the gloves on right away. "Ooooh, Eliot. These are a thousand times better than the ones I have to wear at work all the time. And they have cashmere lining like my coat, so they'll be really warm, too. Thank you."

After that Mom and Dad went to get coffee and dessert, a pastry called rugelach which you should eat if you haven't. It's been Docky's favorite since he was a little boy. While Mom and Dad were in the kitchen I told him that I had a big idea of what I want to give Mom and Dad for Christmas. I can't do it by myself, though, so I asked if he could help me and could we have longer FaceTime the next day and he said sure. I whispered into his ear, "I wrote a book."

"Wow!" he whispered back.

The next night I got to talk to him for a long time and I used the computer in Dad's office so nobody could hear what we were saying which would wreck the surprise. I wrote the book in my head since I don't know how to write on paper yet.

"Can you type this for me, please, Docky?"

"That's my plan, Eliot. You ready to go?"

"Yup. Here it comes. The title is _It Happened on Broome Street_. Because I like the Dr. Seuss book _And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street_ and Mulberry Street is right around the corner from where we live on Broome Street."

"Excellent title, Eliot."

"Thanks, Docky. And next it should say 'by Eliot Beckett-Castle' and underneath 'copyright 2018.' Dad showed me how all books have copyright, with a C inside a circle, and a year in them that shows you that the author wrote the book himself or herself and what year. I'm the author himself and it is 2018."

"That's right. Okay, now we're ready for the story."

"At the top of the page it should say 'Chapter One' because there will be more than one chapter. And then the story begins 'Once upon a time.' Do you think that's a good idea?"

"Some of the greatest stories in the world begin like that, so yes."

"Okay. 'Once upon a time there was a man named Richard Castle.' There still is a man called Richard Castle, Docky, is it okay to say was?"

"Definitely. You can write 'was'."

" 'Once upon a time there was a man named Richard Castle. He didn't have a father, but he had a mother with red hair who was a great actress named Martha Rodgers and she brought him up all by herself. When Richard Castle grew up he started to write books and he also had a daughter, Alexis. Alexis had red hair like her grandmother. She had a mother but her mother lived in California so her father brought her up by himself. He was a great father so he must have learned that from his mother.' Am I going too fast, Docky?"

"Not at all. If you do, I'll ask you to slow down."

" 'Richard Castle wrote a lot of mystery books about Derrick Storm. He was not a real person, just in books. Richard Castle imagined him. Derrick was a private eye, not eye like in your face, but eye standing for investigator. After a while Richard Castle got tired of writing about Derrick Storm and he killed him. Don't worry, he is not a murderer! He just had him die in a book, not real life.' Do you think this is good so far?"

"Can't wait to read what happens next!"

" 'Richard Castle said that he had to kill Derrick Storm because he couldn't think of anything new to write about him. Millions of people loved his books and were very upset when Derrick died and some of them were mad at Richard Castle.' Docky, I have to put a footnote here. Do you know what a footnote is?"

I could see Docky smiling. "I do, Eliot, but I wonder how you know about it."

"Ernie showed me in a book. I'll tell you my footnote in a minute. That's a funny word because it sounds like you wrote a note with your foot which I didn't. But I saw a video of a man who was in an accident and couldn't use his hands anymore so he learned to write with his feet. Isn't that amazing?"

"It is. There are people who paint with their feet, too."

"There are? I'm going to ask Ernie to show me. Did you know that Ernie was in a bad accident? That's why he has those bad scars on his face. Mom and Dad told me not to stare. I tried but I guess I stared a little bit at first and Ernie told me. He was in a motorcycle crash."

"I know. That was an awful thing, and he's lucky to be alive. He was in the hospital for a long time."

"Ernie is the best imaginer of anybody I know. Even Dad. Maybe when he was in the hospital and couldn't do anything except think made him a good imaginer."

"That's a real possibility, Eliot. And it shows that good things can come out of bad things."

"Right, like when Mom arrested Dad! That's the next part of my book. Oh, except first my footnote."

"I'm ready."

"Here it is. 'The author, Eliot Beckett-Castle, hasn't read the Derrick Storm books yet because he's not allowed until he's older, but he has heard people talk about them.' That's it. I'm going back to the regular story now."

"Good."

" 'After Derrick Storm died, Richard Castle couldn't think of anything to write and he was bored, bored, bored. He did a couple of dopey things, not crimes, but he got arrested by a detective in the NYPD, the New York City Police Department. Her name was Katherine Beckett. Most people just called her by her last name because that's what cops do. Richard Castle helped Detective Beckett solve a crime so then he started following her around and helping even though he was not in the NYPD. Pretty soon he started writing books about her, but he gave her a different name, Nikki Heat, so people wouldn't know it was her.' It looked like Docky was trying not to laugh, so I asked him because this part isn't supposed to be funny.

"I'm sorry, Eliot, I was just thinking about what your parents were like then and it makes me chuckle. Keep going with your story and I'll keep typing."

"Okay. 'In the books Nikki Heat had a boy friend named Jameson Rook who was a writer. Lots of people thought that he was really Richard Castle in disguise which made Detective Beckett so mad. She also got mad because Nikki Heat was naked on the covers even though you couldn't really tell because it was just her silhouette. That's a good word for an outline of something.' You're not laughing are you?"

"No, no. I just have a tickle in my throat. I'm going to get a glass of water. Can you hold on a minute?"

"Sure. I'll wait, Docky."

He came right back and held up his water for me to see. "Ready when you are, Eliot."

" 'Richard Castle wrote lots of Nikki Heat books and still worked at the Twelfth Precinct with Detective Beckett and her friends Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan. They had a captain, Roy Montgomery, who got shot and died.' I need to put another footnote, Docky. Can you put a 2 on it since it's the second one, please? Sorry, now you have to put a 1 on the first one."

"Easily done, Eliot. See, I'm typing it right in."

"Thanks. Here's the footnote. 'The author doesn't know why Captain Montgomery got shot, but everyone was very sad.' That's all so I'll go to the story again. 'At Captain Montgomery's funeral a bad guy shot Detective Beckett in the heart and she nearly died but she got better. She had scars but they are under her clothes so nobody knew. But you can get hurt in the heart even if you don't get shot by a bullet, and Richard Castle's heart hurt. It hurt because he loved Detective Beckett but he thought that she didn't love him.' That's the end of Chapter One. Do you think that's a good place to stop?"

"It's the perfect place. It will make the readers very eager to find out what's going to happen."

"I didn't say anything about Broome Street yet. Do you think people will be confused?"

"No, that's just called keeping them waiting. Lots of writers do that."

"Did I tell you about the pictures?"

"The pictures?"

"I would like to have pictures with the story. I know how to print them out from Dad's computer."

"Are you allowed?"

"Yes because there is a special folder that's mine where I have all my favorite photos of our family. Different people took them like Lanie when Mom and Dad weren't looking. I'm the only one who has seen all of them. Dad just hits download for me and I do the rest. A lot of the pictures will be a surprise, isn't that good?"

"I think all of this is good, Eliot. You're quite the imaginer yourself."

"But this is a true story, Docky. So I didn't really imagine it."

"Oh, you did, Eliot. You did. You put it in your own words, and I can assure you that you're a great imaginer already."

That made me really happy. Just then Dad put his head in the office. "Time for supper, Buddy. You've been talking to Docky for a long time. I bet you've worn him out."

Docky said, "Hi, Castle" and he waved. "I'm not at all tired. In fact, I'm utterly energized. But Eliot and I will return to our project tomorrow."

"You two have a project?"

"Prize, Dad."

"All right then. I love surprises. Mom, not so much."

"Castle? I guarantee you that Kate will like this surprise. Love this surprise."

"Yeah, Dad! Night, Docky."

"Good night, Eliot Beckett-Castle."


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This is the final chapter in a three-part Hanukkah-Christmas arc.

I got home from school at lunchtime and wanted to talk to Docky, but I had to wait the whole afternoon and the weather was all sleety so we couldn't go outside. And I was mad at Otis because he kept knocking down everything I was building. So I told Dad.

"Dad! Otis bad."

"Well, remember, he's only eight and a half months old. He doesn't always know what he shouldn't be doing."

"I tell no."

"What did you tell him?"

"No push."

"Otis pushed you? He can't even walk yet."

"No push me. Blocks."

"Oh, he knocked over what you were making with your blocks?"

"Yeah. Mine."

"Okay, well, you know you have to share things with him. The thing is, he's little so he thinks it's funny to knock things over."

"No. No funny. Otis bad."

Dad gave me a hug. "We'll try to figure something out, okay? Maybe we can make a special place for your blocks that Otis can't get too."

"Abby push."

"Abby pushes things over, too?"

"They hellions."

Dad laughed even though he looked like he knew he wasn't supposed to. "Don't call them that, buddy. It's not nice."

"Scrap and me no hellions."

"You're right. You and Scrapple have been very good. I think you've just been cooped up too long today. Why don't we leave the twins here with Sarah and you and Scrapple and I will walk around the block? And we can go on the roof and yell as loud as we want for a minute. Let off some steam."

"Team?"

"Steam. Let off steam means, um, getting rid of some extra energy. Like today you haven't been able to play hard and run around the way you usually do, and doing something like yelling outside at the sleet will help."

We went around the block even though Scrapple really hates rain especially sleet, which is rain with ice in it. We took him home and Dad dried him off in a big towel and then Dad and I went to the roof. It's called a deck, which makes three things I know called a deck. A deck is kind of like a porch and it a is like a floor on a ship or a bunch of cards that you play with, like Mom and Dad's poker game. But yelling on the deck was fun! Nobody told us to shhhhh. I think the hellions should go up there when their teeth hurt and they can yell all they want.

Finally it was five o'clock and I could talk to Docky on Dad's computer.

"Hi, Docky! How are you?"

"Much better now that I can see you."

"Thank you. Can I tell you Chapter Two now?"

"Yes. I've been looking forward to it all day. I'm typing Chapter Two right at the top here, so you can start the next part of your book. I want to tell you that your last bit of Chapter One, about how your heart can hurt, was especially good. That's a very grown-up thing to realize."

"Mom explained it to me, how you can hurt. Like when a boy at school kicked me on the playground it hurt but when somebody said something mean that really hurt, too, just not the same. It hurt my feelings which Mom said are in your heart and sometimes that's worse."

"You're right, that can be much worse. On to happier things. I'm ready to start Chapter Two if you are."

"Okay. Here I go. 'Detective Beckett's heart hurt, too. It hurt for a long time because her Mom died and she missed her but there was another reason. It turned out that she was in love with Richard Castle too but for some reason she thought she couldn't tell him. They didn't talk about it to each other the right way for a long time so they were both mixed up. Martha Rodgers told her son over and over, "What we got here is a failure to communicate," which is what a guy says in one of her favorite movies which is _Cool Hand Luke_. Communicating is like talking.' Hey, Docky?"

"Yes?"

"Did you know Gram says that a lot? 'What we have here is a failure to communicate.' It makes me laugh because she every time she says it with a different voice."

"I can just hear her doing that. I'd forgotten about _Cool Hand Luke_. When you're older maybe you can watch it with your grandmother."

"I wanted to but she said, 'Kiddo, you are far too young for this movie. Ask me again in ten years.' So I have to wait a long, long time."

"That's true, but you have a lot of other things to watch until then. Shall we go back to your story?"

"Yup. I'm starting again. 'It's kind of a mystery how it happened, but finally one night when it was raining Detective Beckett knocked at the door on Broome Street where Richard Castle and his mother and daughter lived. She was cold and she came inside and told him that she loved him. You're probably thinking that this is the end, with they lived happily ever after because it happened on Broome Street, but it's not. There is a lot more of the story. They loved each other, but it took a long time for Richard Castle to ask Katherine Beckett to marry him, and when he did it was by some swings that they liked to go to, even though they were grown-ups. She was sitting on a swing and when he asked her she was so surprised that she jumped right off it into the air. It's lucky that she didn't crash into him because he was kneeling in the grass and holding out a ring to her and if she had then the ring could have rolled away and they would have lost it.' Do you like that part, Docky?"

"I do, I can really imagine it from what you wrote."

"Me, too. I made Dad tell me that a million times. He said he popped the question and Mom popped off the swing!Here's my story again. 'They were engaged for a long time which drove everybody cuckoo but finally they got married next to the ocean at their house in the Hamptons. Most of the time they lived in the loft on Broome Street and when they found out they were going to have a baby, Martha Rodgers moved and got her own apartment not very far away because she said the baby needed the room. Alexis wasn't at home most of the time because she was in college so there really was plenty of room. At the police precinct everybody liked to bet money on things and there were a lot of different ones about what the baby would weigh and when it would get born and if it was a boy or a girl." Docky, I need to have another footnote."

"Let's see, that's the third one, so I'll type a three here. Okay, ready when you are."

" 'The person who won the bets was Doctor Perlmutter. He was so smart. And he was the person who typed this book because Eliot didn't know how to write yet and Eliot asked him because he was his best friend.' That's the end of it, Docky."

"I'm very honored to be a footnote in your first book. Thank you. "

"Do you think I'll write more books?"

"I'd be very surprised if you didn't. But let's back to your story."

"Okay. 'The baby was a boy, and his birthday was August 31st. Richard Castle and Katherine Beckett called him Eliot and for his last name they put both of theirs together so his whole name was Eliot Beckett-Castle. And then he went home and lived with his Mom and Dad on Broome Street even though he really already lived there before. That was when he was still in Katherine Beckett's stomach so he didn't know what home looked like until he came back from the hospital. While Eliot was still a baby they got a dog, a dachshund named Scrapple who was Eliot's bed friend besides Doctor Perlmutter. When Eliot was turning a year old they all found out that there was going to be another baby. And pretty soon after that they found out that was wrong, there were going to be two babies, twins. Katherine Beckett was very worried about having two more babies at the same time and even though the twins, who were Otis and Abby, were born in an emergency in the stuck elevator at the precinct, everything turned out fine. It was on Saint Patrick's Day while Eliot and his Dad were at the parade. But luckily Doctor Perlmutter was in the elevator and helped the babies get born. And they got to go home soon, too. And they lived with their Mom and Dad and Eliot and Scrapple on Broome Street. Everybody was glad, even if sometimes the twins made Eliot mad by hogging his toys. And they still all live happily ever after.' Docky?"

"Is that the end, Eliot? You did a great job. You should be very proud."

"No, there's one more special chapter. It won't take too long. Can you help me do that now?"

"Of course, if it isn't time for your supper. Why don't you ask if you have to eat now."

"Okay. I'll be right back."

I didn't know Mom was home but when I came out of the office I saw her and Dad sitting on the sofa. She said, "So, Eliot was upset because Otis knocked over his blocks?"

"Yeah, he was. The thing is, I sometimes forget, you know? He taught himself to read when he was fifteen months old and does math in his head and can probably beat anyone in this city at checkers, so I have some unreasonable expectations. He'll probably be speaking six languages by the time he's in first grade. It's just—he's so advanced in so many ways that I forget that emotionally he's the same as other kids his age. He's not even three."

It was like Dad was looking inside my head. It's call mind reading, which Gram told me about, when you know what somebody is thinking even though they haven't said it out loud. It felt like Dad was reading my mind because that was some of what I was going to write in the last chapter.

I said "Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!" kind of loud so they would know I was there.

Mom got up and kissed e and said, "Hi, sweet pea. Dad told me that the twins were knocking over your blocks. I'm sorry they don't know better yet. Did you have a good day other than that? Dad said you got to go on the roof and yell."

"Yeah! Fun!" Then I pointed to Dad's office. "I talk Docky."

"Are you still doing your project with him?"

"Yeah."

"Did you want to spend more time on that now?"

"Lil bit, Dad."

Dad came into the office and asked Docky if he had time right then to work with me.

"Eliot says he'll be through soon, almost done. Is it all right with you and Kate?"

"Sure. Dinner can wait. Thanks again, Perlmutter, for whatever it is you're doing for him."

"It's my pleasure, Castle. You have no idea. Really."

I waited for Dad to leave so he wouldn't hear about my book. "Docky, could you write something under where you put Chapter Three?"

"Certainly. What would you like to say?"

" 'The first two chapters of this book, _It Happened on Broome Street_ , are for anybody who wants to read. Chapter Three is a special one for Richard Castle and Katherine Beckett.' Now comes the regular part, Docky."

"All right. I'm eager to hear this special chapter."

"Here it is. 'Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. It's me, Eliot, but you figured that out. I hope you like the book that I wrote you for Christmas. This is the extra part about why I wrote this book. I know I am not like other kids, even though we have fun playing. Some kids who are different like Matthew who wears a hearing aid feels weird. You never make me feel weird. You give me special things like letting me go visit Ernie in the afternoon and learn lots of stuff with him that I don't learn at school. I wasn't going to put in this next part but today I heard Dad say I might know six languages by the time I am in first grade. I would like that. I want to speak French like Mom. And Russian. That's two, plus I already speak English, so six take away two and one makes three so I could learn three more languages. Other people might think that was weird but you won't. You don't think it's weird that I could talk to the twins when they were still EB and Obi in Mom's stomach even though I know I am not supposed to tell other people because they might think I was telling a fib. You told me it was magic that I could do that and I love magic, so that makes me happy. I think maybe I'm a magician. One time when Mom was giving me a bath she told me that it was magic that she and Dad found each other out of all the millions of people in New York City where we live. So that must be why I turned out to be a magician. Thanks, Mom and Dad. Merry Christmas. Love, Eliot.' That's the end, Docky."

"What a wonderful book, Eliot. You want to put some of your pictures on the pages with the story."

"Yeah! A picture book! Can you help me some time before Christmas?"

"I can. In fact, I'll call your parents and ask if Saturday afternoon is all right. It won't take us long. I'll ask your father if it's all right if we can use his computer with your file of photos."

"I'm excited about what it's going to look like."

"Me, too. You go eat your supper now and I'll call your parents after that."

"Okay. Night!"

Dad told me the next day that he and Mom talked to Docky and we could use his computer on Saturday. And we did! We picked out a whole lot of my pictures to go in the book, like of the precinct and Dad working in his office and the wedding and Mom when I was inside her belly and Scrapple with Docky and me in the snow and the twins trying to stand up. I sat on Docky's lap while he made all the pages. It was amaze balls!

"How many copies would you like me to print out, Eliot?"

"Just for Mom and Dad."

"All right. We can always make more since I made a file, okay? May I ask you a favor? Would you mind if I printed out a copy for myself? I won't show it to anyone."

"You can have one, Docky. You helped me."

"Thank you. I loved hearing you tell me your story, but I'd like to be able to read it again. I don't have the memory that you do, so if I have my own copy I can read it any time."

"Okay, two copies. I'll press the button when you tell me it's ready."

"It's ready."

And that was my book! Docky took me to the paper store around the corner and we picked out a blue folder to put around my book so the pages wouldn't get wrinkly. Then we made a label and put it on the front. It said

 **IT HAPPENED ON BROOME STREET**

By Eliot Beckett-Castle

Docky helped me wrap it up. We were going to put it under the Christmas tree but I knew Abby and Otis might tear off the paper and I would be really mad. So instead we put it in my room on top of my dresser and on Christmas I will give it to Mom and Dad. I'll let you know what they say.

 **A/N** A short Christmas-morning chapter will follow.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

It was so early in the morning that it was still dark, but Scrapple and I were awake. I decided to go across the hall and see the twins since I could hear them making their gurgly noises. Otis was standing in his crib holding on to the rail and Abby was sitting up in hers.

"Do you guys know what day it is?" I was whispering so Mom and Dad couldn't hear me on the baby monitor.

 _"_ _Duh, Eliot. Everybody knows. It's today."_

 _"_ _Otis, don't be so bratty. It's Tuesday, right, Eliot? Because yesterday was Monday. I remember you told us that Tuesday comes after that."_

"You're right, but it's something else too. I'm going to tell you, but not Mister Snooty Pants."

I got right up to the edge of Abby's crib and whispered even quieter, "It's Christmas! Santa came and I bet he brought tons and tons and tons of presents."

"Oooooh!" Abby said that out loud. She looks just like Mom when she gets excited, even though she's only a baby.

 _"_ _You might as well tell me because I'm going to find out when Mom and Dad come up here."_

"Yeah, well you can wait then, Otis. Because I'm not telling."

 _"_ _It's Christmas, Otis. Santa!"_

"Hey, Abby, that was a secret. I told you because you were being nice. Scrapple and I are going back to bed."

I guess that was dumb of me because then they both started to cry. Scrapple and I went back to our room and I stood on my tiptoes so I could get _It Happened on Broome Street_ off my dresser. I put it under my quilt so Mom and Dad wouldn't see it when they came in and it was just in time because all of a sudden there was Dad leaning over my bed.

"Merry Christmas, Eliot! Do I have to tickle you awake?"

"No, Dad, me and Scrap up!"

"Okay. Let's take you to the bathroom and then you put on your slippers and we'll go downstairs."

"Santa come?"

"Oh, I do believe he did. There are tons of presents under the tree, and the stockings are so full they look like they might explode."

"Boom?"

"Yeah, boom. They're not really going to explode, though."

"Good."

After I went to the bathroom I put on my slippers. I like them but I hope Santa brought me some penguin ones that I asked for. They would be fun to wear with my PJs that I have on which have pictures of sea lions. Penguins and sea lions live in the Galapagos Islands. That is my favorite name for a place, besides Schenectady which is a city in New York State. I know a great joke about it. Here goes. "Can you use Schenectady in a sentence?" "This lamp is disconnected, he said." Isn't that funny? Ernie told me.

Dad and I went into the twins' room to see if Mom needed help getting the hellions into clean diapers and onesies, but she is so fast she was already done. She was holding Abby on one side of her and Otis on the other. I ran up and hugged her around her leg and wished her merry Christmas.

"Merry Christmas, sweet pea."

"And Scrap."

"Right, and Merry Christmas to you, Scrapple." Mom scratched him under the ear, which is his favorite spot.

 _"_ _Thank you. I hope Santa didn't forget me."_

 _"_ _He didn't. I promise. I put things for you in my letter."_

 _"_ _You're a good boy, Eliot."_

 _"_ _You're a good dog, Scrapple. Let's go downstairs."_

Dad wasn't kidding. You should have seen the living room. There were presents all over the place, not just under the tree. But first we opened our stockings while we had breakfast. I got to help with Abby's and Otis's because they make a mess and drop everything all over the floor if you don't. When we opened our presents I helped Scrapple, too. There was a big squishy package from Santa and inside was the soft blanket I asked for. It's dark green and SCRAPPLE is sewn on it in white letters. It will go right on my bed at night for him but after we opened it Scrapple went round in a circle and then curled up on it and went to sleep!

I loved everything I got from everybody, but the best thing was about a zillion blocks with five different fonts which Dad explained to me. I can spell out everything I ever want. The blocks were from Mom and Dad, not Santa, because he and the elves don't have time to make something that is especially just for one kid. I know how to spell thanks so when the twins were taking their nap I made five towers of blocks that said THANKS and went and got Mom and Dad to show them. Then I wanted to get the book while Otis and Abby were still asleep so I went upstairs all by myself with Dad watching just in case and I got the present and came back down.

"Mom, Dad, come sofa."

"You want us to sit down, Eliot?" Mom said.

"Yeah, sit."

"I think Eliot must have a surprise," Dad said. "Is this the project you were doing with Docky?"

Dad is smart! "Yeah. I get up tween."

"You want to sit in between us?"

"Yeah, Mom, tween." So I got up there and gave her the package because Gram says "ladies first" even though that makes Mom roll her eyes.

"Why don't I untie the ribbon and Dad can take the paper off?"

Mom is so smart, too. "Okay."

And when they did and saw IT HAPPENED ON BROOME STREET, they both said, "A book!" At exactly the same time, which they do a lot. It's one of their trademarks. That's a word I learned from Ernie.

I held up three fingers. "Three!"

"Three?" Mom opened the cover. "Three chapters, I bet."

"Yeah!"

"Wow, this is a really long book," Dad said. "How about if we take turns? Mom reads aloud the first one, and I'll do the second and we can do the last one together?"

I clapped. "Yeah! Good!"

They did. They stopped sometimes if they wanted to ask me how I knew something or to say they really liked a part or to laugh. When they were reading the last page about them not thinking I was weird I felt something land in my hair and I looked up and it was Mom crying and one of her tears had gone on my head. Dad had to finish reading because she stopped. And at the end she hugged me so tight and said, " _je t'adore, mon petit magicien_ ," which she told me later was French for "I love you, my little magician." And Dad hugged me and said he'd better be careful now that there was another writer in the family.

That's me, Eliot.

Merry Christmas!


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** A two-part story in which Eliot finds a way to use his mental agility in his favorite sport.

Oh, boy, I am in big, big trouble. Gigantic, humongous trouble. Trouble with a capital T, which is what Gram says. I am writing this in my head while I am waiting for Mom to get home.

Mom is always telling me not to play ball inside, but I like to bounce one against the wall in my room. I do it different ways and try to figure out exactly which way it will go. In physics class I learned about the angle of incidence equaling the angle of reflection, so I should always be able to catch the ball, but I'm not always fast enough to be in the right spot. It drives me crazy. My mind knows where the ball will go but the rest of me doesn't catch up. Mom and Dad say I shouldn't be upset because I am still only six years old and my body doesn't work as fast as my mind yet.

This is why I'm in trouble. After school today I was throwing the ball while our baby sitter Sarah was doing something downstairs with the hellions. The twins turned five last month, but they're still hellions. I'm not kidding. They need to be supervised A LOT. Anyway, while Sarah was downstairs with Otis and Abby, I did something really dopey, which was to throw the ball as hard and fast as I could at the corner of the wall and I didn't hit the right spot. You know what? After it hit the opposite wall, it ricocheted off the bookcase and it came towards me about a million miles an hour. That's an exaggeration. I like to exaggerate sometimes. Gram says "it's good for dramatic effect, kiddo." So it wasn't really a million miles an hour, but it felt like it when the ball hit me in the face.

The first thing that happened was that Scrapple ran after the ball. The second thing was that I screamed bloody murder. That's not really exaggerating because even though there wasn't a murder there was blood all over the place. There was blood coming out of my nose and blood coming out of my mouth. It was running on to my shirt and I was trying to get it to stop, so I grabbed the first thing I saw, which was my comforter, and held it on my face. Mom will kill me for getting blood all over it because it was her mother's when she was a little girl, so it is "very old and very precious, and you must promise to take extra-special care of it, Eliot." That's what she told me. She won't really kill me but she will be disappointed in me, which is a lot worse, I have to tell you.

I could hear Sarah running up the stairs and calling my name. She ran into my room and held me tight while she got her phone out of her pocket and called Dad. I couldn't hear what he said, but Sarah told me he was only a couple of blocks away and was coming right home. She picked me up and carried me downstairs and when Abby saw me she started yelling.

"Eliot's bleeding! Eliot's bleeding!"

Otis was excited, "Ooh, look at the blood! Is he going to die?" And that made Abby cry.

So now two of us were crying and Scrapple was trying to jump up and lick me.

 _"_ _Are you all right, Eliot? Do you have to go to the hospital?"_

 _"_ _I don't know, Scrapple, but it really hurts. I want Dad."_

Sarah grabbed ice cubes from the freezer with one hand and put a dishtowel around them and told the twins to stay where they were and be good while she took me to Mom and Dad's bathroom.

"I'm going to try to wash your face, sweetheart, and put ice on it. Don't try to talk, just nod or shake you head when I ask you this. I think you must have been playing ball and it hit you, am I right?"

I nodded yes.

When she took the comforter off my face she looked like she was going to faint on the floor where Scrapple was standing. "Oh, my God, Eliot," she said. "You knocked out your front teeth."

 _"_ _Don't worry, Eliot. You'll get new ones, like those two you got on the bottom. And the tooth fairy will bring you money."_

Just then I heard the front door open and the twins telling Dad where Sarah and I were and he ran in there so fast that he skidded on the floor. He hugged me and then looked at me while Sarah told him what happened. He asked her to stay with the twins and he picked me up to take me to the emergency room at the hospital. Eduardo our doorman got us a taxi and while we were riding in it Dad was holding me on his lap and calling Mom at the same time but she wasn't answering. I could tell that he was really upset because he was swearing which he never does in front of us kids.

"Beckett. Call me back right away. It's urgent. Please."

When we got to the hospital Dad ran the whole way to a booth where a lady asked him what was wrong. Because of all the blood we got to see the doctors right away. I couldn't feel my face very much because of the ice plus later they gave me medicine so that I wouldn't have too much pain there. Dad held me while they looked at me. They had to X-ray me to make sure that my nose wasn't broken or that I hadn't hurt anything too much in my mouth. I also had to have some stitches in my lip and Dad held on to me while they did that, too. Doctor Lowe told me I would have two black eyes from the ball hitting me on the nose.

"You know that when the ball hit you, it knocked out your two top front teeth, Eliot."

"My maxillary central incisors?"

The doctor looked surprised when I asked that and Dad said, "Eliot reads a lot. A great deal, actually."

"Oh. Well, yes, the ball knocked out your maxillary central incisors, but there was no long-term damage and what we call your permanent or adult teeth will come in soon."

"I already lost my mandibular central incisors, but they pretty much came out all by themselves. I wiggled them a lot before. When the second one came out we were on vacation in a hotel but the tooth fairy knew where I was and put money under my pillow. I tried to stay awake to see her and say I but I couldn't. The two new ones are already coming in. You probably saw that when you looked in the bottom of my mouth."

"Yes, I did. They look very healthy and I'm glad they didn't get hurt."

"They didn't sustain an injury, right? I like that expression. It's in a book I have."

"Right." Doctor Lowe smiled and looked at Dad. "That's quite the reader you have there, Mister Castle."

"You have no idea," Dad said, which is something he and Mom say a lot to each other. For their wedding anniversary this summer I am going to get them matching tee shirts that say YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I'm saving up my allowance and my tooth fairy money.

We got to go home after that. Dad had talked to Sarah before so she knew what was going on. He had to turn off his phone for a while in the hospital so he asked Sarah to talk to Mom and she did. We were just getting into a cab when Mom called and said she was on the way back from Albany and would be there in two hours.

Even though I am going on seven I sat in his lap for the ride home, and he gave me a squeeze. "Mom and I are so relieved that you're going to be okay, Eliot. But she's pretty mad, too, because she's told you so many times not to play ball in the house, hasn't she?"

"Yeah."

"You could have been really badly injured, you know."

"Yeah."

"Well, tell you what. I'll let Mom talk to you, and you work this out between you."

"You mean I'm going to be punished?"

"I think you pretty much got your punishment by having those stitches and by being hurt and scared, but Mom wants to have a talk with you because she's warned you a lot about playing ball in the house."

"She's gonna talk about percussion."

"Percussion?"

"Things that you do, especially ones you're not supposed to do, can have a percussion, and that's not good. Sometimes they are serious."

"Oh, repercussions. Right. Yes, I'm pretty sure there will be some repercussions."

"You're the good cop, Dad."

"What?"

"Today you're the good cop and Mom is the bad cop."

"Where did you hear about good cops and bad cops? And by the way, buddy, as far as you're concerned, Mom is never, ever a bad cop."

"Uncle Javi explained it to me."

"Well, Uncle Javi doesn't know absolutely everything about it." Dad looked out the window. "We're almost home. You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, Dad."

When we got inside Otis wanted to see my stitches and said they were gross and Abby kept telling my nose looked big. "So would yours if I threw a ball at it," Otis said.

Dad and I took a shower together downstairs because he got a lot of my blood on him. Then he got dressed and took me upstairs and told me to put on my pj's since it was late and Sarah had already made supper for the twins and was putting them to bed. I couldn't eat very much because my mouth was so swollen but Dad said that he and Mom and I would have soup as soon as she got home from Albany.

I sat on a stool while Dad made the soup. "Did Sarah find my teeth?"

"I didn't ask her, Eliot. I think she had a lot more on her mind. She might have when she was cleaning up your bedroom floor."

"Can I go look for them?"

He held up the big spoon he was using on the soup. "Why?"

"Because I want to leave them for the tooth fairy."

Then he put the spoon down and put his hands on the counter and looked very serious. "I'm not sure that the tooth fairy will come for these teeth."

"How come? I lost them."

"You lost them because you were doing something you know you're not supposed to do, and Mom has told you not to do."

"So if the tooth fairy doesn't come that would be a repercussion because of what I did."

"Mmhmm."

"You mean the tooth fairy is like Santa? And she knows if I've been bad?"

"Yes, she does."

"So she might not bring me any money tonight?"

"She might not."

And then two things happened at the exact same time. I started to cry and Mom opened the door.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** The conclusion of a two-part story in which Eliot finds a way to use his mental agility in his favorite sport.

Mom dropped her bag on the floor, not even on the table the way she usually does. She ran into the kitchen and got down on her knees and put her hands on the sides of my face. "Oh, sweet pea, look at you. Oh, oh." And then she started to cry so there were two people crying like before only this time it was Mom and me instead of Abby and me.

She got on a kitchen stool and held me on her lap for a little while. She stopped crying and blew her nose and asked me if my nose and mouth hurt a lot. I said not too much because Doctor Lowe gave me medicine at the emergency room and then she asked why I was crying.

"I lost two teeth. Two ways. I lost them because they came out and I maybe lost them because we're not sure where they are or if Sarah found them after my accident."

"And?"

You can't ever fib to Mom because she can always tell. She always knows when I haven't really answered a question, too, so I had to keep going. "And I was crying because right before you got home Dad said the tooth fairy might not come."

"Mmhmm. Did he say why?"

"He said I was doing something I knew I wasn't supposed to and the tooth fairy is like Santa and knows if you're bad."

"Dad's right. You know, when I was the twins' age the Easter Bunny didn't bring me anything because I had done something wrong. I was really upset, but you know what?"

"What?"

"I learned an important lesson and the Easter Bunny came back the next year."

"So the tooth fairy will come the next time? Because I still have sixteen teeth to lose."

"If you've learned your lesson. And you're a smart boy, so I'd bet a lot of money—way more than the tooth fairy brings, even for sixteen teeth—that you have."

"Not to play ball in the house."

"That's right. And why?"

"Because it can be dangerous."

"Absolutely. Imagine if the ball had bounced a little bit differently and hit you in the eye? You might have lost your sight."

"I could have worn a cool eye patch like a pirate, right Dad?"

Dad was behind Mom and made a face like I shouldn't have said anything.

Mom made a different face. She looked straight at me, like her eyes were on fire. "Eliot."

Oh, boy, when she says my name that way I'm really in trouble. "I'm sorry, Mom. I know. It would terrible if I couldn't see out of my eye."

"Yes, it would." She looked over at the stove. "Now, I think Dad has finished making supper, so let's all go sit at the table. He put some ice cubes in your soup for a minute so it won't be too hot for you to eat."

We had supper and Mom wasn't yelling at me or anything. I think my repercussion is the tooth fairy not coming. When we finished Mom said it was time for me to go to bed and that she would be up in a minute to help me with some medicine for my mouth since I can't brush my teeth for a couple of days. I was almost in my room when I remembered my comforter. Oh, boy, I was really going to get it now. Mom would be so, so mad. She notices everything, so I couldn't even hide the comforter under the bed because she would ask where it is. I didn't know how much blood was on it but maybe I could cover up the spots with stuffed animals or something. I ran in to see how bad it was and you know what? It was fine. I couldn't believe it. It was like magic, but I knew it wasn't really magic.

I have a dachshund stuffed animal that Docky gave me for my third birthday and I always keep him right by my pillow. I named him Sidney, after Docky, and I saw that there was an envelope between his front paws. The envelope said "For EB-C," which is me, and inside there was a letter:

"Dear Eliot,

"I know that you must have been worried about the comforter because it's a family heirloom. Luckily I was able to get out the blood with some advice from my mother, and then I put it in the washing machine and dryer. It looks good as new now, which is amazing since it's about 70 years old!

"This will be our secret. I hope that you feel better soon.

"Love, Sarah"

I had just finished reading it when I heard Mom coming upstairs, so I shoved it in the drawer of my nightstand. She helped with the medicine in the bathroom and was tucking me in when Dad and Scrapple came through the door. Scrapple jumped on the bed with me and Mom and Dad kissed me good night.

The next day was Saturday and it rained all day and I didn't feel too great. Dad took the twins to the planetarium and to see the dinosaurs even though they've been there a thousand times (exaggerating!) and I stayed home with Mom. The Yankees game was called off because of the weather but Mom and I watched something called a Yankee classic from before I was born and she told me all about it because she had been at that game with Granddad. She could remember so many of the plays, it was amazing. It was before she knew Dad.

"I love watching baseball with you, Mom."

"I love watching with you, too, Eliot. I think you got the baseball gene from Granddad and me."

"I got blue eyes from Dad and long legs from you. That's genes, too."

"Yup. I just made up the baseball gene, but I like to think it exists."

"Me, too. You know what my favorite part of the game is?"

"Cracker Jacks?"

She made me laugh. "That's Dad's favorite. Mine is the numbers."

"The statistics."

"I love that part."

"I know you do. They make the game even more interesting to watch, don't they?"

"Yeah."

"I have a surprise for you. Docky's coming to brunch tomorrow. He wants to see you and I'd like for him to look at your nose and mouth, especially. You won't mind, will you?"

"Docky's my best friend, Mom. I would never mind."

At work Docky only looks at dead people and figures out how they died. He used to be a pediatrician before his wife and baby, Abby, died in a train crash. He is a great doctor for live people, too, even though he doesn't do that for anybody but me. We have a game he calls Two-Person School House. Lately he has been teaching me the names of all our bones, including teeth. Teeth aren't bones but they both need calcium. Anyway, that's how I knew about maxillary and mandibular central incisors. Those are my favorite teeth names except for canines which mean dog teeth even though they're for humans, too. Scrapple let me look at his. In Two-Person School House I've been teaching Docky about baseball. He's going to come to some games with us in the summer and says he will like it even more now that he knows rules and things.

When he was here for brunch on Sunday he told Mom and Dad that he was sure I'd be fine and he told me I had two very colorful shiners which is a funny word for black eyes because they're not shiny. After we ate Dad and the twins got out all the Legos to build something huge in the living room and Docky and Mom and I went to Dad's office to watch some of the ball game.

"Isn't that your favorite player at the plate, Eliot?" Docky said.

"Yup. Deshawn Robinson. He's the third baseman."

"Ohh, Deshawn, my man."

"Dad's your man, Mom."

"It's an expression, Eliot. I just mean he's the best."

"It he gets a hit his average will be four hundred."

Docky looked surprised. "How do you know that?"

"Cause it's three ninety-one right now. See next to his name? It says point three nine one. He's been up sixty-nine times so far this year, not counting walks, and he has twenty-seven hits, so that makes his average three hundred ninety one, see? You just divide twenty-seven by sixty nine. So if he gets a hit this time, it will be twenty-eight out of seventy, which is exactly four hundred."

"Huh," Docky said. "You think he'll get a hit?"

"Yeah, for one reason because it's cloudy. Ernie helped me to look up the weather for all the games last year and when Deshawn plays during the day and it's not sunny he hits a lot better."

"Aha, that's good thinking, Eliot." He looked over at Mom. "Did you know that Eliot and Ernie did that research, Kate?"

"No, I didn't. That's a great project, Eliot. What's another reason you think Deshawn is going to get a hit?"

"Wow, see, he just did! He just hit a double, did you see that? That's the other reason I had, because he's better against left-handers. That pitcher is a lefty like me. It's good I don't have to pitch against Deshawn Robinson. I wish I could, though."

"Maybe you will someday, Eliot," Dock said. "Not against him, but who knows? You might be a baseball player when you grow up."

"He's dying to play now, Sidney. His school has a terrific team."

"They won't let me play since I'm six. But I have some classes with a lot of guys who are on the team, physics and math. I even help one of them who doesn't get calculus very well. He's sixteen. I don't have a lot of stuff to talk about with them and if I could play baseball with them we could talk about that."

"I know, sweetheart, but you're not tall enough or strong enough to compete with them."

Sometimes Docky gets this expression on his face and you know he is about to have a big idea. His eyes scrunch up and so does his mouth. When I saw his face go like that I knew he was going to say something.

"I have an idea, Kate."

See! I told you!

"What?"

"Eliot is the prince of statistics, it seems to me."

"Oh, you have no idea."

See, Mom even says that to Docky sometimes.

"Well, couldn't that be useful to the team at his school? If he notices things like this boy hits better in sunshine, things like that?"

"You know what, Mom? That pitcher on our team named Dennis? Whose socks are always going down into his shoes? He doesn't throw very many curveballs but when he does he always wipes his nose on his glove first."

Mom laughed. "Eww, Eliot. That's kind of gross, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's gross. Who would ever want to pick up his glove? Yech, it's all snotty."

"But it's valuable information for boys who are facing him, isn't it, Kate? They might have noticed, as Eliot has, and they'd be ready for the curveball. But if, what's his name?"

"Dennis."

"If Dennis could learn not to do that, batters wouldn't know what pitch to expect from him. So, my point is, couldn't Eliot sit in the dugout and give statistics and observations to the coach? Wouldn't he be a real asset?"

Mom sat up straight and clapped. "Sidney! You are a genius."

I leaned over and whispered to Docky. "Like me! I'm not supposed to say that but that's what some kids say to tease me. I don't care though. And it would be nice if we are both geniuses."

Docky whispered back, "Thank you, Eliot, but you're one of a kind."

"Are you two gentlemen finished exchanging secrets?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Good, because Castle made chocolate mousse and all six of us are going to have some. Not you, Scrapple, no chocolate for dogs. And when we finish, Eliot, I want you to help Otis and Abby with their building because Dad and Docky and I have to have a grown-ups' conversation."

I had fun with the twins. We made a Lego castle because that's part of our name and then we made crowns out of paper for everybody including Scrapple and Docky even though his last name is Perlmutter. It was a good day even if the tooth fairy didn't come.

And you what happened on Tuesday? Dad came to school to get me but instead of going right home we had a special meeting with the principal, Ms. O'Connor, and Coach Jackson. He asked me lots of questions about the team and then he asked if I would like to be the team statistician! I get to sit in the dugout at every practice and every game. I got to start doing that the next day and on Saturday, which was yesterday, we had our big game with the team that beat us last year in the semi-finals of the city championship. I have a uniform and everything. My number is 1/2 because Coach says I'm half the size of the other guys.

Everybody came to the game, even Gram who hates sports. We beat that other school five to four and at the end Dennis came up to me and said, "Hey, kid. You were right about my glove. You're a genius." And he high-fived me and I knew that he wasn't teasing me.

So everything worked out. If I hadn't thrown the ball indoors and knocked out my teeth then Docky wouldn't have come over and we would never have talked about statistics and he would never have had the idea for me.

Now I'm a member of the baseball team. I'm one of the guys.

 **A/N** Thank you all for welcoming back Eliot.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

 **A/N** This chapter is for Pen to Paper Writer, who has often asked, and always so nicely, for more about Eliot. I hadn't dropped in on Eliot in ages, and am grateful to PTPW for nudging me back.

I love weekends because we're all together. Gram usually comes over, and Docky always has Sunday brunch with us. Sometimes on Saturday morning I stay in bit a little bit after I wake up and wait to hear Mom in the kitchen. She gets up early to go for a run and I like to listen to her talk to her sneakers, which makes me laugh. Most people don't know how funny Mom is because she's so badass. I'm not supposed to know that word or say it, but I can't unremember it, can I? I remember almost everything, even when I wish I didn't, like where a baby comes from, which Tyler at school told me. He pinky swore that it was true.

This morning I was lying in bed so I could hear Mom talk to her running shoes, but I heard something else instead.

"I'm really worried about Eliot," she said.

"You're always worried about Eliot because his IQ is off the charts." That was Dad, and I could tell he was sleepy. "But we've got the best help in the world for him."

"It's not that."

I got out of bed and stood by my door so I could hear better, which I knew I shouldn't because I was eavesdropping, which means secretly listening. It's not polite.

"This is going to be a real conversation, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry. I know you had a lot on your plate yesterday and don't want to do this first thing in the morning. But it's important."

"It's okay." He yawned. And then his voice got all soft the way it does a lot when he talks to Mom. "He's a happy, well-adjusted, six-year-old boy. Isn't that the greatest thing? And the most important? When he got home from school yesterday afternoon he was so excited telling me about kinematics—which of course I had to Google. And then he decided to play tag with the twins and some other kids. He got a skinned knee followed by a chocolate chip cookie and all was right with his world."

Dad Googled kinematics?

"I know, but that's not it. Last night, about half an hour after we tucked him in, I had to go upstairs for something. His light was off but he was talking."

"Probably reading his Kindle aloud."

"No, he was talking to the dog."

"To Scrapple? We all talk to Scrapple. I talk to him a lot, and unlike other members of this family he never talks back to me."

By then I was looking down over the top of the stairs and saw Dad kiss Mom on the shoulder, which is better than when he kisses her on the mouth.

"But that's the thing, Castle." She took hold of his hand and didn't let go. "Eliot was talking to Scrapple as if the dog could talk back to him. As in have a chat with him. Exchange information. Ideas. Tell jokes."

I hope Scrapple didn't hear her say that because he might be insulted. He tells great jokes.

"That seems like a normal thing for a kid to do, especially one with a great imagination. Plus he loves Scrapple."

"No. I stopped to listen. Eliot would ask a question and then wait for an answer. And then he'd respond as if he'd gotten one. It was weird. I stood out there for about ten minutes, until he said, 'Night, Scrapple, sleep tight.' I was about to tiptoe away when he said, 'Really? Should I ask Mom and Dad?' And then there was a little pause and he said, 'Okay. I will'."

Oh, boy. Uh-oh. Mom and Dad talk to me sometimes about the consequences of my actions. That's what they say. "Eliot, you have to think about the consequences of your actions." I didn't think about that when I was talking to Scrapple last night because I didn't think that someone could hear me. I'm usually careful about the way I talk to him, but last night I wasn't. When Gram is exasperated she says, "I KNEW this day would come!" I guess I KNEW this day would come but oh, boy. Here it is. Maybe Gram would know what to do but I sure didn't.

"I think you're worried about nothing but an overactive imagination, Kate. I have one, too, after all. It's made us rich."

I'm not supposed to say we're rich but it's okay for Dad to say it to Mom because they're married to each other and share everything.

"Castle, please stop trying to pacify me. This was different."

Then Dad stuck his jaw out and blew air from his mouth. It made his hair fly around above his eyebrows. "Do you want me to say something to him?"

"No, I want us both to say something to him. Otis and Abby are going to a birthday party at eleven. I was supposed to drop them off and then take Eliot to the Planetarium, but I think we should use at least some of that time to talk to him."

Scrapple must have jumped off my bed just then because his toenails went click, click, click the way they do on the wooden floor and I had to scrooch back right away so Mom and Dad didn't see me. And then I picked up Scrapple and came down the stairs and made sure I made plenty of noise so that they would turn around and see us. And they did.

"Good morning, sweet pea," Mom said like she always does even when she isn't worried that I think I can talk to Scrapple, which she wasn't until today.

"Morning, Mom. Morning, Dad." I put Scrapple down. "What's for breakfast? I'm starving." That's what Dad calls "a diversionary tactic." It means saying something to make other people stop thinking about what they were thinking and make their minds go to something else. I thought if I talked about breakfast they would stop thinking about me talking Dog. That's what Docky calls it. Talking Dog. Which he can do, too.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Dad said. He grabbed me by the back of my PJs and then he swung me around. He likes to do that. I like it, too. "Scrapple needs to go out, first, right? So why don't you put on your jeans and your socks and shoes and you and Scrapple can go downstairs with Mom while I make sure the twins are up and start cooking. Okay?"

"Aren't you going for a run, Mom? It's Saturday morning."

"Not today. Maybe tomorrow I'll do my loop twice."

"Eight point five miles, right? 'cause usually you do four point two five."

"Right."

"I like eight point five. Did you know the square root is two point nine one five four seven five? Well, it's more but I think six numbers after the decimal point is enough."

"If it's enough for you, Mister Wizard, it's definitely enough for me." Then she kissed me on top of my head. "Now go get your shoes and socks so we can take Scrapple around the block."

 _"_ _Don't forget your pants, Eliot."_

Scrapple said that. I wanted to tell him, "You're lucky you can go out on Broome Street without any pants. If I did that Mom would arrest me," but I didn't. Instead I ran back to my room for my clothes. While I was fastening the straps on my sneakers—they have Velcro which makes this cool sound—I was trying to figure out what to say when Mom and Dad asked me about talking to Scrapple. Mom thought it was weird. I don't want her to think I'm weird. When I was on the third step of the staircase I got a good idea. I could ask Docky to help me! He's a grown-up and worldly-wise. That's an expression I learned from Gram. I hope I will be worldly-wise when I'm older, like ten. Ten will be my first age of double digits, so I could be worldly-wise by then.

"Ready, Mom. I'll get Scrapple's leash." I was hoping that she wouldn't say anything about it while we were outside. I guessed that she'd wait for Dad because they like to talk to me about stuff together, but just in case I tried a diversionary tactic again when we got to the sidewalk.

"Do you think Dad is going to make waffles?"

"He might. Is that what you're in the mood for?"

"Yeah. And I was thinking we could invent some new toppings."

 _"_ _Eliot, I want to sniff the fire hydrant, so don't walk past it, please. I think you might be distracted by waffle toppings."_

I can't wait to tell him that I wasn't distracted by them, I was trying to distract Mom!

"What kind of new toppings?"

"We could have pineapple and macadamia nuts and coconut and call them Hawaiian waffles."

"How about Alaskan waffles?"

"I don't know, Mom. The only thing I can think of for Alaska is salmon and I think that would be yucky."

"You like ice cream on waffles, though, so how about Eskimo Pie waffles? Since lots of Eskimos live in Alaska."

"You crack me up, Mom."

"You crack me up, too, Eliot."

"Did you know they're Yupik and Iñupiat in Alaska? But nobody says Yupik and Iñupiat Pie, do they?"

"I don't think so."

"Maybe I'll just stick with maple syrup this morning."

 _"_ _Stick with syrup? That's pretty good, Eliot."_

My diversionary tactic turned out to be fun. And it turned out that Dad really was making waffles. Sometimes I think he's a mind reader.

After we finished eating Mom got Otis and Abby ready for the birthday party they were going to for someone in their nursery school. They had an argument about which one of them got to put their finger on the ribbon while Mom tied the bow. The twins have dopey arguments like that all the time, but they're only four, so I guess you have to expect it. Like in the car yesterday Otis said, "We're going to Brooklyn's tomorrow," and then Abby said, "No we're going to Brooklyn tomorrow." And then I got to be the big brother, which I am anyway, and say they were both right because they were going to Brooklyn's party and she lives in Brooklyn. I'm glad Mom and Dad didn't name any of us Manhattan.

Mom and Dad knew I was excited about the Planetarium and if I didn't mention it they might be suspicious so I said, "I can't wait to see the movie about Pluto. I think it's unfair that it used to be a planet and now it isn't one."

"That's science," Dad said. "We find out new things all the time and sometimes that means having to rethink other things."

"Eliot? We're going to have to make our visit to the Planetarium short today. We can see the Pluto movie but then Dad and I have something we want to talk to you about."

"Can't you talk to me another day?"

"No, it's important."

I really, really, really, really wanted to call Docky, but I'm not supposed to do that without asking first, so I kept my mouth shut except to say "Okay."

The movie was good, but we came home right afterwards. I just wanted our conversation to be over with because I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be good. At all. We sat on the sofa together, with Mom on one side of me and Dad on the other. And when Mom started to talk Scrapple came out of nowhere and jumped up to lie next to me. He is the best dog in the world.

"I want to ask you something. Last night I overheard you talking to Scrapple and it sounded to me as though you were having a conversation with him. There's nothing wrong with that, and I know you love to make up stories, just like Dad, but I'm worried because it didn't seem like a story. It seemed to me that you really believe Scrapple can talk."

"He does. To me. All the time" There. I said it. I just want her not to think it's weird.

"Eliot," Dad said. "Doctor Doolittle can talk to animals—"

"And Mary Poppins. She can."

"That's true. But Doctor Doolittle and Mary Poppins are characters in books. They're imaginary."

Docky and Scrapple are my best friends. I didn't want to tell, but I had to. "Docky isn't imaginary and he can talk with Scrapple, too. And he's a real doctor."

Mom turned the color of this piece of paper. I've only seen her do that a couple of times, when she was mad or scared. I thought she was mad at me, but maybe she was afraid, too. She said, "What?" And then she said it again. "What?"

I couldn't tell what Dad was. But he looked at Mom and she looked back and then she looked at me and she was very calm. When she is very calm that is scary. And she said, "Eliot, you know the difference between truth and fantasy. I'm proud for you that you have a wonderful imagination, but this is serious. If you're telling me the truth, or you think it's the truth, that you and Doctor Perlmutter can talk with Scrapple, that makes me worry."

"But Mom, I promise."

"Eliot."

"Dad, I promise. Please can I call Docky? He'll tell you I'm not making it up."

Dad was really, really quiet for a long time which he never is. I bet I could have counted to a thousand Mississippis before he said anything, but finally he did. "Kate, I'm calling Sidney. Right now. I think—. I think Eliot is right." He took his phone out of his pocket and pressed Docky's number and left a voicemail. He said it was really, really important.

Mom looked upset, so I took her hand and held on to it like she did to Dad in the kitchen this morning. It was her left hand that has her rings. She only wears her diamond ring when she's not at work. I like it because it's so sparkly and when she looks at it she always smiles like she doesn't know you can see her.

"Mom?" I tugged her hand. "It's just like when you and I speak French together. _Oui, je parle français_. Only with Scrapple it's _oui, je parle chien_. Yes, I speak Dog."

Scrapple thumped his tail and rolled his eyes up at Mom, even though she wouldn't know what he was saying. _"Eliot speaks Dog fluently. Like a native dachshund."_

I didn't want to thank him out loud, so I scratched him behind his left ear, which is his favorite spot. I think he is left-eared.

Dad's phone rang and he answered it but walked into his office. I could hear his voice but not the words. I was still holding Mom's hand when he came back out. "Sidney's right around the corner, buying a new omelet pan. He'll be here in a couple of minutes."

Mom got up. "Will you excuse me, please?" She sounded like an announcement on the subway, like she was far away or might be a robot. She wasn't far away, though, she just went into the kitchen.

I was going to go with her but Dad shook his head so I stayed on the sofa. He sat down and put his arm around me, and then we heard a knock on the door. Scrapple got there first, jumping around and barking like crazy. It was Docky. He gave me a big hug and whispered, "I hear you've had a hard time. I'm sorry. We'll straighten this out." And then he patted Scrapple and said to Dad, "I'm going to speak to Kate for a moment, if that's all right."

When Docky got to the kitchen, Dad kind of squinted at him and Mom. "Why don't we get out the Legos? We can build something and you don't have to worry about your sister and brother demolishing it."

So we did. I don't know how long a moment is supposed to be, but Docky and Mom had been in there for a long, long time. Dad and I were halfway through making a chariot with wheels and I said, "I bet you're doing a diversionary tactic on me, aren't you?"

That made him laugh, so that made me happy. "You're getting hard to trick. I'll have to up my game."

"I think your game is really good, Dad."

"Thank you. I think you're flattering me. But you know what? Even though it's getting hard to trick you, it's still easy to tickle you."

Dad is the greatest tickler in the world. He made me laugh so hard that I didn't even notice that Mom and Docky had come into the living room. But Scrapple put his nose on my hand, which he likes to do, and said, " _Look who's here._ " That made me sit up fast.

"Eliot, could you come over here, please?" Mom was standing by the coffee table, and she must have made coffee because there were a bunch of mugs on a tray there, and a thermos, and a plate with cookies. If there were cookies she couldn't be mad at me. That was good, but I was still worried that she thought I was weird, which is a million times worse.

I was almost there when she put her arms out and pulled me against her and hugged me harder than she ever hugged me in my life. It was like a Guinness World Record hug. "I'm so sorry, sweet pea. I'm so sorry. Let's sit down."

We all did, on the sofa, but Mom lifted me up. "I'm glad you're not too grown-up to sit on my lap. I think this is the best place for you to be when I apologize. I accused you of not telling the truth, and that was wrong of me. I should never have doubted you when you told me you could speak Dog, and you know why?"

"No."

"Because you are my wizard boy, the one who could talk to Otis and Abby before they were born. If you could do that, why shouldn't you be able to talk to Scrapple? Do you remember how upset I was when Docky told me you spoke to the twins?"

"Yeah."

"And do you remember what I called you afterwards, after I really understood everything?"

"You called me your little translator."

"And what else did I say?"

"You said I was an amazing boy."

"You are my amazing boy. You amaze me every single day. One of the things that I love most about Dad is that he believes in magic. I never really did before I met him and I still have a hard time with it. I'm so happy that you inherited that from Dad, believing in magic. And you're pretty magical yourself, you know." She gave me another hug then, and leaned over to kiss my cheek. "I need to tell you that more often. Remember the first time I did?"

"When I wrote that book for you and Dad for Christmas? When I was two?"

"That's it. I called you my little magician. And you are, even if you're not so little anymore. Now, Docky and I had a long talk, and I'm very grateful to him for helping me to understand everything. And he had a great idea about a demonstration that you, he, and Scrapple can do for Dad and me. A kind of magic show, okay?"

"Okay."

"I'll let him explain it."

Docky and I got up from the sofa but Dad went to his office. "Isn't Dad staying for our demonstration?"

"Absolutely. He can't wait for it. But he has to get some things you'll need for it."

"Eliot, what we're going to do is ask Scrapple a question. And when he answers, which only you and I will be able to understand, each of us will write down what he said. Aha, here comes your father with pencils and paper for us."

"We're each going to write it down?"

"Yes."

"Oh! I get it! Because we'll write the same thing and then Mom and Dad will know that we really can talk Dog. In case they don't believe."

"Eliot, we totally believe you," Dad says. "But this will be so cool for Mom and me."

"Why don't you ask the question," Docky said to me.

I wanted it to be a really good one, and then I decided. This all started because Mom heard me with Scrapple last night, even though it seems like about a year ago. I promised Scrapple that I'd ask Mom and Dad something and I hadn't. So now I would.

"Hey, Scrap, remember last night you told me something and I said I'd ask Mom and Dad about it? Would you tell Docky and me, please?"

 _"_ _I said that was bored with my dog food which I've been eating since I was three and I want to try another kind. Simon, the cocker spaniel on the fifth floor, loves the duck meal one."_

"It won't make you quack will it?"

 _"_ _No."_

"Okay. Did you get that, Docky?"

"I did. Shall we fill in our papers?"

"Yeah!"

Docky can write a lot faster than I can and also I don't know cursive yet which is quicker than printing, but he waited for me to finish and then he gave his paper to Dad and I gave mine to Mom.

They read them, but not out loud, and they smiled. "Let's trade," Dad said to Mom, "so we can compare."

And they did and then they laughed and clapped their hands. "Wow," Mom said. "Wow. All three of you, take a bow."

And we did.

It turned out that Mom hadn't made coffee, she'd made hot chocolate for all of us. Except Scrapple, because dogs can't have chocolate. But on the plate of cookies there were also two biscuits for him. Dad held one up.

"Is this okay Scrapple? Or do we need to get a different kind? Because I don't want you to get bored with your treats."

 _"_ _I love these peanut butter ones. I'll let you know if I want a change."_

Docky and I looked at each other. "You tell the first part, Docky."

"All right. He said, 'I love these peanut butter ones.' Now you translate the rest."

"He said, 'I'll let you know if I want a change'."

"This is going to take some getting used to," Mom said.

"Not for me," Dad said. "I'm already a thousand percent involved."

So the morning I was afraid was going to be bad wasn't bad after all, it was good. And it got even better, because after we finished our hot chocolate Mom said, "C'mon Eliot, you, Scrapple, and I are going on an errand."

"Where?"

"To the pet supply store. Scrapple can show us what kind of food he wants."

We found it in the store, right away, and bought a bag and walked home. When we were in the elevator I said, "Can I ask you something important?"

"Of course, you always can."

"You don't think I'm weird, do you?"

Just then the elevator door opened on our floor. Mom took my hand and we got out, but there was no one else in the hall, and she stopped. "Eliot? Were you worried about that?"

"I was afraid you would think I was weird. That would be worse than even if you didn't believe I could speak Dog."

She hugged me so hard that she broke her own Guinness World Record from before. "Never," she said. "Never, never, never. And you know what? I wish I could speak Dog with you."

"Well, we can always speak French."


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Mom and Dad always tell me that I can ask them anything, but once in a while I don't want to. I want to know about something but I don't want to ask them because I am a little bit shy or they might be shy. Or embarrassed which is sort of the same. It doesn't happen very often. I can ask Docky things, too, but sometimes he tells me that I should ask my parents. I think this would be one of those times, but I'm going to ask him first anyway.

It all started because my homeroom teacher, Ms. Harmon, is going on maternity leave. That's when a woman has a baby and then stays home for a while to take care of it. Like when the twins were born Mom stayed home for six months. I was so sad when she went back to the precinct, even though Dad was with us a lot and so was Sarah, our babysitter. I wonder how long Mom stayed home after I was born? Maybe for three months because I was only one baby, not two. That's something I can ask which is not embarrassing.

Anyway, Ms. Harmon's last day for a while was day before yesterday, which was Friday. Her belly is ginormous and I am not being rude. She's not fat, it's just that way because she's going to have a baby. Matthew, who sits next to me, said he hopes the baby doesn't fall out of her before she gets to the hospital. And then Tyler, who is seven and thinks he knows everything which he doesn't, said that babies don't fall out. The mom has to push them out through, um. There. I don't think that could be true, could it? And then he told us how the baby got in there, and Matthew and I went EWWWW!

So that's what I want to ask Mom and Dad about and if you already know where babies come from you can probably guess why I am embarrassed. I could look it up on my computer but my computer has parental controls which means there are a lot of things I could try to Google and not get anywhere because they're things my parents don't want me to read, at least not by myself. I think where babies come from is probably one. Even if I could look it up it would probably have pictures and I don't want to see those. "Good night, nurse!" That's what Gram says when she sees something she doesn't like. She probably wouldn't mind seeing pictures of that though since she had a baby once, who grew up to be my Dad.

Oops, there goes the doorbell. It must be Docky, coming for brunch. So pretty soon I'll know the answer to my question. I'll be back in a little bit.

I'm back. Oh, boy. Here's what happened today. Before we sat down to eat I told Docky that I wanted to show him something that I'd made but it was in my room. So he came upstairs and then I said, "I'm sorry I told a fib. I don't really have anything to show you but I have a big question and I didn't want to ask in front of everyone else, especially Abby and Otis."

"Oh, my, Eliot. It sounds serious. I hope nothing's wrong."

"Nope, nothing's wrong."

"All right, then, let's sit down and you tell me what's on your mind."

"It's about Ms. Harmon. Well, not really. But sort of. I mean, it's what made me think of it."

"Ms. Harmon is your home-room teacher, isn't she?"

"Yeah but now she's starting maternity leave because she's going to have a baby. And it must be soon because she looks like she's about to explode."

"Ah, ha. I see."

When Docky says that I know he's waiting for me to explain. Because he always stops right there and then he looks at me and if he were a cartoon instead of a real person there would be a puffy cloud over his head with a whole bunch of question marks inside it.

"She's not really going to explode."

"I should hope not. That would be terrible."

"It would be a huge mess. Like sometimes when the twins and I have a lot of toys out or have been building something and the blocks or Legos are all over the place, Dad says, 'You'd better clean that all up before Mom gets home. It looks like a crime scene in here'."

Docky looked at me again with the cartoon question-mark cloud over his head, so I figured I'd better go ahead and ask him.

"It got me thinking about where babies come from. Tyler at school told me but I don't know if he's right. Plus he also told me how a baby gets out. I guess I should have thought about how it would get out. Not out of your mouth, right? And I believe in magic but I don't think you say abracadabra and then poof, the baby is there."

"That's true."

"I have a book about mythology and there's a goddess, Athena, who was born by jumping out of her father's head. Her father was Zeus who was the ruler of all the other gods. Anyway, that doesn't make a lot of sense, right? That she jumped out of her father's head? Plus in the picture she has all her clothes on and is a grown-up when she's coming out of his forehead, so she was never a baby at all. But I don't think it's how ordinary babies get born."

"You're right on the money, Eliot, that's not how ordinary babies get born. I think what you want to know is how babies are made and how they arrive, am I right?"

"Made? Babies get made? Like in a factory? That's not what Tyler said. I like the factory idea better, though. That's good, Docky."

"Sorry, not in a factory. How babies are made is an expression. Now, much as I would love to continue this conversation with you, this is something for you to ask your parents about."

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

"You're not afraid to ask them, are you?"

"I'm not afraid, just kind of shy. Especially if what Tyler said was true."

"Well, Eliot," Docky said, and he gave me a little sideways hug. "I don't know Tyler, but I can guarantee that your mother and father know way, way, more about this than he does, okay? Tell you what, would you like me to talk to your parents? Tell them that you're curious about this? Then you don't have to be shy about asking them."

Docky always has the best ideas. "Yes, please."

"All right, I will. And now I think it's time we go join everyone. I'm hungry, aren't you?"

"Yeah. And you know what? We have cinnamon raisin bagels."

"Ooooh, my favorite."

"I know. That's why I asked Dad to get them when we were in the bakery this morning. Don't forget you can't give raisins to Scrapple."

"I won't. I know they're very dangerous for dogs."

"It's a good thing you're not a dog, Docky."

"Probably. But sometimes I think it would be fun. Just for a day."

"You'd have to eat dog biscuits."

"You're right. I'll stay being me, and getting to eat whatever I want." Then we walked down the stairs and Docky said, "Thanks for remembering my favorite bagel."

"You're welcome. I'm like an elephant, right? 'cause I never forget."

"Maybe I should call you Eliophant, then."

"That would be cool. I don't have a nickname except sweet pea, which is what Mom calls me. If kids at school found out they'd tease me to death."

"Eliophant it is. You are."

Brunch was fun. The only bad part was when Otis took a raisin out of a bagel and put it in his nose and said, "You think it's a raisin but it's snot!" And then Mom told him to stop but he shoved it way up in his nose and it got stuck so Docky had to take him to the bathroom and get the raisin out with some tweezers. Gram stayed with Abby and me and then afterwards while Mom was talking to Otis I saw Docky talking to Dad. And then I saw Dad look over at me and I knew Docky must have told him about my question.

Since it was raining we couldn't go to the park, but we went to the museum to look at the mummies. On the way out I saw a statue of Zeus. It was made of marble but it was just his head. I got Docky and showed him. "His forehead looks okay even though his daughter jumped out of it, doesn't it?"

"It does. Maybe he had a doctor fix it."

I love Docky. Outdoors on the steps we all said bye. Docky and Gram went to their apartments and the rest of us went to the loft.

Abby and Otis are only four so they go to sleep before I do. Mom and Dad put them to bed and then they came back down to the living room where Scrapple and I were playing tug-of-war with an old sock.

"Eliot," Dad said. "Docky told us that you've been wondering about where babies come from, so Mom and I would like to talk to you about that."

"I'm kind of surprised that you never asked before," Mom said. "You're Mister Curiosity about almost everything."

"I guess I was busy with other stuff. But then in school on Friday Tyler said something about Ms. Harmon's baby."

"He did?" Mom was smiling. "What did he say?"

"About how it would get born. How it would get out of her body."

"Mmhmm. Okay. That's a good place to start. Babies grow inside their mothers, you know that. And when they're big enough to survive on their own, they—"

"Mom! Wait!"

"What?"

"Could I talk to Dad?"

"Of course."

"I mean by myself."

Mom looked so sad. "Just you and Dad? You want me to leave?"

"I need to ask him guy things. You know. Because we're both guys."

"Ohh, I see. You feel a little bit uncomfortable because I'm not a guy."

"Yeah. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings."

"There's nothing to be sorry about, sweet pea."

See? She called me sweet pea. I love that she does that as long as it's just at home. And then she said she would go to her and Dad's room and read for a while.

When she left Dad said, "You can ask Mom about this, too, you know. Especially since she's the one who had the babies, not me."

So I told him what Tyler told me and he said it was TRUE, anyway the part about where the baby comes out. And I said, "Did Mom holler when I was being born?"

"Kind of."

"I bet she said 'ouch' a lot."

"She did."

"Did she say swear words like the time she almost cut her thumb off in the kitchen last year?"

You know what happened then? Dad laughed. He tried to pretend like he didn't but he did. "I think she might have. She doesn't do that very often, you know."

So then I had to ask the hard part which is how babies got made, not in a factory. And Dad told me. He doesn't lie to me so I know it must be the truth but yikes! Then I asked him one more thing that was really important. "Why would anybody want to do that?"

"Well, when you're older you'll understand, I promise."

"Hey, Dad? I know I'm smart. I'm different from the other kids."

"I know. And I know it isn't always easy for you."

"But if I'm really smart how come I don't get that sex is good? Because it sounds really icky to me."

"I thought it was icky when I was your age, too."

"But then you met Mom and decided it wasn't icky?"

Dad got this weird look but he said, "I definitely did."

"Can I ask you something else?"

"Absolutely."

"The egg that turned into me was really tiny?"

"Yes, it was."

"Teeny tiny?"

"Yes. You'd need a really good microscope to see it."

"But we eat chicken eggs all the time and they're big even though chickens are way smaller than humans. How come their eggs are so big?"

"That's a great question, Eliot, and we'll look it up tomorrow. But it's awfully late now and you have school in the morning. Time for you to hit the hay."

"I think chickens hit the hay, Dad. I have a bed."

And then he grabbed me and tickled me and we both laughed. "Okay, smarty pants. Go brush your teeth and put on your PJs and Mom and I will come tuck you in."

I was under the covers and Scrapple was curled up next to me when they came up and said good night. They were leaving and I said, "Mom? Can you stay for a minute? Just you?"

"It would be an honor," she said and then she sat down on my bed.

"I'm sorry about before."

"It's fine, sweetie. I know it's easier for you to talk to Dad about things like that because you're a boy. When Abby gets older it will be easier for her to talk to me because she's a girl."

"No, I mean really before. When I got born."

She made a sound like she was surprised. "Why are you saying you're sorry about that?"

"'cause I know it must have really, really hurt. I asked Dad if you said ouch a lot and he said yes. I hope I didn't kick you or anything. I bet I was in a big hurry to get born, wasn't I?"

Mom lay right down on the bed next to me and hugged me. "Oh, Eliot, I forgot that it hurt the second I saw you. You were the best, best, best thing ever. Now can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Don't be in a big hurry to grow up, okay?"

"Okay."

And she kissed me good night, patted Scrapple, told me to have sweet dreams, and went downstairs. I was just about to fall asleep when I thought of one more thing. Why did Dad say we had a birds and bees talk? We didn't say anything about birds or bees. But we talked about chickens and chicken eggs. Maybe they have something to do with it? Nighty night.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** The only part of _Castle_ that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

My sister Abby is crazy about music. Even before she was born she loved it, especially classical. She started violin lessons last year when she was three and I was all ready to stick my fingers in my ears when she did because my friend Toby plays the violin and you should hear the noise he makes. It's horrible. SCROICH! SCREECH! It reminds me of the what the sliding door in our Hamptons house sounds like when it needs oil which Granddad always fixes.

But it turned out that I didn't have to stick my fingers in my ears after a couple of days. She's really good. She has a little violin because she's a little kid, but it sounds really good. Mom says she's almost ready for a bigger one and when she's older she'll get a regular size one.

The other day I said, "Hey, Abby, you should go up on the roof deck and play your violin."

Abby started to cry and Mom got mad and said, "Eliot, that's very mean." She thought that I was insulting Abby and wanted her to go play out there so we couldn't hear her.

"Mom, I meant that to be nice! I thought if she played up there we could call her the Fiddler on the Roof, like in the movie."

 _"Good one, Eliot. I wish dogs could laugh out loud because that's really funny."_

I love Scrapple. He always understands what I'm saying.

Abby stopped crying and Mom decided when the warm weather comes back we can have a little concert up there just like a real grown-up musician does. Right now it's freezing and even though Abby is talented she can't play the violin when she's wearing mittens.

Today is Sunday and this morning we went to Family Day at Carnegie Hall. It was for all of us but especially for Abby. We take turns in stuff, like for next weekend I picked Get Physical with Physics. Anyway, we were going to go to Carnegie Hall in the car but it was snowing so hard that we took the subway. We were waiting on the platform for the train which felt like it would never get there.

"Let's play a game," Dad said. "How about composers whose names begin with R since we're riding on the R train?"

He always has great ideas for games, but that one seemed like it might not be too good. "Abby and Otis can't spell big words yet, Dad."

"I know. But they know the sound of an R and that's all they need for this."

"Rachmaninoff!" Abby yelled it so loud that a lady on the bench who was asleep woke up. Before I could think of a composer Abby had another one. "Ravel!" I don't know who either of them is, but Mom smiled so I knew that Abby was right.

"This a dumb game," Otis said. He looked very cranky. Plus he needed to blow his nose which instead he wiped on his parka sleeve.

"You're just saying that because you aren't interested in composers." They're twins but they argue a lot. Gram tells them they sound like an old married couple. "We played your dumb game yesterday when we went to the electric train show so we get to play mine today."

"Kids," Mom said in her Captain voice, which is pretty scary. "Stop fighting. This is not a dumb game and neither was yesterday's."

I was about to say that I wasn't fighting with anyone but then she gave me her Police Mom look so I didn't.

So I said, "You know what? There are names that sound like they begin with an R but they don't. Like Wright. Sam Wright in my chemistry class. I bet people spell his name wrong. Get it, Mom? 'cause Wright sounds like it begins with R but it really begins with W like wrong. But only when it's a last name not when you're saying something is right or wrong."

"One hundred percent correct," Dad said. "But that might be a little complicated for your brother and sister until they're older."

"No fair, Dad, 'cause Eliot is always older than Abby and me." Otis was still looking cranky.

Mom clapped her hands, which means she wants us to pay attention. "I think some people in this family got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. Let's all calm down. And look! Here comes our train."

"Rossini!" Abby hollered when she saw the big R on the front of the subway.

"I wish I would have stayed home with Scrapple," Otis said. Mom took hold of his hand and then they went to two seats that were not next to ours so that she could talk to him by himself.

To tell the truth, which I'm always supposed to do, I thought Family Day at Carnegie Hall might be boring but it wasn't. It was the opposite! We didn't have to sit in fancy red seats or anything, it was in a huge other room. There was all kinds of music plus we got to learn how to be a conductor who is not the person who drives the subway—well, a conductor does drive the subway but this is another kind of conductor. The conductor is the person who shows the orchestra how to play together so it's nice music and not just a big mess of noises. A conductor waves a stick around called a baton. Even Otis liked it, maybe because he's a little bossy and liked being the boss of the orchestra. The twins turn five next month and I bet they might get batons. Abby might, anyway.

We also got to make instruments to take home with us, and the best part was that we got to talk to a lot of people whose job is to play music. We sat on the floor with them and you could find the instrument you liked best and then the person would tell you all about it and even let you hold it and they play something for you. Mom and Dad tried to get Abby to look at something besides the violin but she refused. She stayed with one violinist the whole time and told her that she played, too. So the the woman let her hold her bow and her violin and when she asked if Abby knew how to pluck the strings Abby said, "You mean pizzicato?" and the woman said wow. And then she let Abby play pizzicato on her own violin! I wish Gram had been there because she would have said that was amazeballs, which it was. Luckily Dad secretly made a video on his phone. Not totally secret because I saw him but I didn't tell!

Abby said to the nice violinist, "Can I take a selfie with you?"

And the violinist whose name was Anna said, "I would be honored."

"I'm not old enough to have a phone so I can't take it."

Mom said, "Why don't I?"

Anna let Abby hold the bow in the picture and afterwards Mom said, "What do you say, Abby?"

"I'm honored."

I think Mom was reminding Abby to say thank you but what she said was just as good, wasn't it?

My favorite instrument was the clarinet which is called a woodwind. It's made of wood and you have to blow into it, so your breath is like wind, to make sound come out. The clarinetist I talked to plays in a big orchestra but he also plays jazz. He was so cool. Dad and I were talking to him together and I said that I wanted to learn and the man said I was too young. It turns out I have to have my four front teeth before I can start and also need to grow more so that my hands are big enough. I was very disappointed but I guess I can wait. Gram says, "Good things come to those who wait." Sometimes that's not true but usually it is. Gram has lots of expressions.

Finding out about so many instruments like the tam-tam which sounds like it should be something little in a rhythm band but is really a humongous gong that Otis liked, reminded me of our _Peter and the Wolf_ CD. Abby has played about a thousand times. She loves that Peter is played by the string instruments and always says that the violin is the best of them. Anyway, I remembered that in _Peter and the Wolf_ the cat is a clarinet. I'm pretty sure that Scrapple wouldn't like that, so maybe it's lucky I can't play it yet.

The twins were with Mom and I said to Dad, "I'm sure I'm old enough and big enough to play the drums. How about that?"

"You know how much Mom loves music, right?"

"Right. So wouldn't she love it if I learn to play the drums?"

"You also know how Mom also says, 'I have my limits'?"

"Yeah."

"Drums are one of them. Definitely off limits. Sorry, kiddo." He sounded like Gram!

So I'll have to think of something else. Or wait for my new teeth and for my hands to grow. Also then I will have lot of time to explain about the clarinet to Scrapple. When I play it maybe he could chase me around the room like I was really a cat!

When we were getting our coats on to go home Mom asked the twins and me, "Did the three of you have fun?"

We all said, "YES!"

Dad was looking around the room again. "I can't believe this is free."

Then Mom told him, "And I can't believe you haven't written them a check."

"I have." He held up five fingers. Well, four fingers and a thumb. I don't think I was supposed to see that but I did. So I whispered to him, "You gave them five dollars? That's a lot of money."

"Worth every penny."

"That's five hundred pennies, Dad."

He ruffled my hair. "Definitely worth five hundred." When he said that Mom laughed. I don't know why she thought it was funny, but she has a great laugh, so it was fine with me.

 **A/N** Thank you all for spending time with Eliot. He loves hearing from you.

To the anonymous reviewer of chapter 11 who complained at length that Eliot couldn't possibly be in school with kids his own age because he'd be bored to death: listen up! In previous chapters there have been discussions about his taking most classes in the high-school division, but a few, such as homeroom and art, with his peers so that he socializes properly.


End file.
